Putin's May 9 Speech: In a Regime Founded on the Manipulation of Belief, the Appearance of Victory is What Matters

"Russia cannot afford to lose, so we need a kind of a victory. The stakes of the Russian elite are very high - for them it is an existential war." This April 2 statement on Russia's invasion of Ukraine by Kremlin insider Sergey Karaganov previewed the awful reality now unfolding.

Russia is fighting a total war with two declared aims: annihilating Ukraine and sending a warning to the entire democratic order. "The real war is against Western expansion...This war is a kind of proxy war between the West and the rest ...," Karaganov commented with terrifying cynicism, given that by this logic Ukraine's destruction would just be collateral damage in a larger conflict of civilizations.

Putin's tight lid on dissent means it's difficult to know if Russian elites have really embraced this war as a last-ditch, all-or nothing crusade, as Karaganov claims. Certainly, they cannot be pleased at the economic harm and loss of prestige the war has brought to Russia, starting with the spectacle of military failures. It's telling that Anatoly Chubais, Putin's climate envoy and the man who knows Putin well, having recommended him in 1997 for his first Kremlin job, resigned from his post and left the country. 

A 2020 survey of 240 high ranking Russian elites revealed that their support of Putin has been largely based on their belief that he has enhanced Russia's reputation abroad. That reputation now lies in shambles, making Karaganov's assertion questionable.

Of course, Karaganov could not state another main goal of this war: keeping Russian President Vladimir Putin in power. In fact, a more realistic assessment of the situation would go like this: "Putin cannot afford to lose, so we need a kind of a victory. The stakes for the Russian president are very high - for him it is an existential war."

We know that perceptions of competency and popularity matter to the longevity of authoritarians. Putin would not be the first to make his position at home much more precarious due to imperialist overreach.

That's why the Russian president's new focus on Eastern Ukraine and the liberation of Donbas might best be termed "Operation Save Face." For it is an operation designed to produce not an absolute victory over Ukraine, but rather the appearance of victory ("a kind of victory," in Karaganov's words). That will allow Putin to play the national hero and vanquish any instabilities caused by the war or threats to his power inside Russia.

In a regime maintained by the manipulation of belief as well as corruption and repression, appearance is far more important than reality. And so the Kremlin feeds Russians stories about Putin's supposedly soaring popularity since the invasion started, and about the necessity of "denazifying" Ukraine --a democracy with a Jewish president.

In this spirit, May 9, a national holiday that commemorates Russia's defeat of Nazis during World War II, is reportedly being planned as a Victory Day with a twist. It will celebrate Putin as a wartime leader and a Nazi slayer -- the Stalin 2.0 he dreams of being. "Putin will have a victory parade on 9 May, regardless of the status of the war or peace talks," said a European defense official knowingly, summing up this propaganda strategy.  

Rehearsal for May 9’s Victory Day Parade, Alabino Polygon, near Moscow, April 18, 2022. This year’s celebration will likely have an enhanced propaganda role.

That would be a fitting event in a country where "nothing is true and everything is possible," to quote the title of an insightful 2014 book by Peter Pomerantsev. Except that the violence of this war is all too real.

We can expect an escalation of that violence in the weeks to come, with intense conventional battles and perhaps the deployment of chemical weapons. The truth is that Putin needs a victory, at whatever cost to Ukrainians and his own people, in order to secure his power at home. That, in the end, is what autocrats really care about.