Unusual clarity. Russia is no longer the West

Автор: Ilyin Vladimir A., Morev Mikhail V.

Журнал: Economic and Social Changes: Facts, Trends, Forecast @volnc-esc-en

Рубрика: Editorial

Статья в выпуске: 2 т.16, 2023 года.

Бесплатный доступ

Of the struggle for a multipolar world and for the independence of all national states fighting to preserve and strengthen their national sovereignty against the hegemony of the United States and its satellites. At the same time, making things clear regarding Russia’s foreign policy guidelines allows the President to further improve domestic policy, bring it in line with the status of Russia as a country-civilization in terms of strengthening the foundations of public administration, achieving full national sovereignty and social justice. The article analyzes the adoption of a new Foreign Policy Concept as the President’s next step in the implementation of the general course of national development that he has been in charge of for the past 23 years. We present the relevant expert assessments and the dynamics of public opinion regarding the activities of the head of state. We also look into objective historical prerequisites that determined the specifics of a new Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation, as well as some key tasks that are coming to the fore in domestic policy after the adoption of the Concept. of the struggle for a multipolar world and for the independence of all national states fighting to preserve and strengthen their national sovereignty against the hegemony of the United States and its satellites. At the same time, making things clear regarding Russia’s foreign policy guidelines allows the President to further improve domestic policy, bring it in line with the status of Russia as a country-civilization in terms of strengthening the foundations of public administration, achieving full national sovereignty and social justice. The article analyzes the adoption of a new Foreign Policy Concept as the President’s next step in the implementation of the general course of national development that he has been in charge of for the past 23 years. We present the relevant expert assessments and the dynamics of public opinion regarding the activities of the head of state. We also look into objective historical prerequisites that determined the specifics of a new Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation, as well as some key tasks that are coming to the fore in domestic policy after the adoption of the Concept.

Еще

Foreign policy concept of the russian federation, friendly and non-friendly countries, president, public administration system, elites, public opinion

Короткий адрес: https://sciup.org/147240552

IDR: 147240552 | DOI: 10.15838/esc.2023.2.86.1

Текст научной статьи Unusual clarity. Russia is no longer the West

March 31, 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin approved a new Foreign Policy Concept, which, as Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov pointed out, “reflects revolutionary advances in the international sphere which have received a considerable boost with the start of the special military operation” ¹ .

The wording of the concept is firm and resolute, and it determines Russia’s place in the international space, its historical mission and relations with foreign states very clearly. In the document, it is the first time ever that Russia is called a “unique country-civilization”, “the core of the civilizational community of the Russian world”. The Concept clearly defines the role of the Collective West as “the source of major risks to the security of the Russian Federation” and the United States as “the main inspirer, organizer and performer of the aggressive anti-Russian policy of the Collective West” (Insert 1) .

Many experts (Russian and foreign) point out that, while describing Russia’s situation and the overall geopolitical situation, the authors of the Concept call things by their proper names (Tab. 1).

Vladimir Putin: “Radical changes in international affairs have forced us to seriously revise our main documents on strategic planning, including the Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation, which sets out the principles, tasks and priorities of our diplomacy.

The Foreign Ministry, working together with the Presidential Executive Office, the Security Council Staff, the Government and many ministries and departments, has completed a large-scale and meticulous job to update and adjust the concept to modern geopolitical realities” ².

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Table 1. Russian and foreign experts on the Foreign Policy Concept of the Russian Federation dated March 31, 2023

Russian experts:

“…In the previous decades, Russia, with various degrees of zeal and success, was guided by the fact that it should integrate into different communities like the European and global. Now it’s over, because civilization does not have to fit in anywhere – it is self-sufficient” ³ .

“If we consider things from a broader perspective, if we look at the Constitution of the Russian Federation, take into account the fundamentals of state policy for the preservation and protection of traditional values and a number of other documents, then we see that all this is connected, it is a consistent picture , which, in fact, declares an important direction for Russia. Definitely, it is the protection of sovereignty for the preservation of the people … As for Russia’s mission, it has remained unchanged for centuries. The mission is to fight injustice . So it has been for centuries and so it will be in the future...” ⁴

“The foreign policy concept turned out to be a document corresponding to its time ... the key message is that Russia is ready to defend its interests, defend its sovereignty, including, if necessary, the use of tough measures in relations with its counterparties in the international arena” ⁵ .

Foreign mass media:

Bloomberg (USA): “President Vladimir Putin approved a new Russian foreign policy concept that set out to confront the U.S. and its allies, claiming an “era of revolutionary changes” was under way in international relations …”

Daily Mail (UK): “ The 42-page document outlines changes in Russia’s views on the world. In particular, the confrontation that has been brewing in recent years and repeatedly voiced by Putin in relations with the West has finally been consolidated” ⁶ .

China Radio International (CRI, China): “ The new edition of Russia’s Foreign Policy Concept is based on the results of an assessment of the international situation, as well as its own security ” ⁷ .

The above excerpts from the new RF Foreign Policy Concept prove the unambiguity and firmness of its main provisions. Perhaps the main statement is that Russia is no longer the West. And it is quite consistent with the following points:

first, “modern geopolitical realities, transitional nature of the era, noticeable aggravation of threats to international security8”; experts note that “the bell tolls for the existing world system”9, Russia is involved in an “almost real war”10, and this is “not a clash between Moscow and Kiev, but a military confrontation between NATO, primarily the United States and UK, and Russia”11.

“When Vladimir Putin first came to power, he tried to establish good relations with the West. He held out his hand, but his gesture was completely ignored… Putin has not changed, he has always remained true to himself, regardless of external events”12.

“The Hill” newspaper opinion contributor Harlan Ullman notes that Western countries ignored the main call of President Vladimir Putin in his 2007 Munich speech – to abandon the idea of a unipolar world. The Russian president considered the reaction of Western leaders disrespectful; it was their mistake.

In addition, the West did not realize the seriousness of what was happening, rejecting the draft agreements on security guarantees proposed by Moscow in December 2021”13.

Second, the leadership style of Vladimir Putin himself, who in the course of 23 years of presidency has changed from a national leader who is quite loyal to the Collective West to a head of state who actually challenges it.

At the same time, as the President himself notes, he is guided by a “healthy conservatism”, which presupposes “a realistic assessment of oneself and others, a precise alignment of priorities, a correlation of necessity and possibility, a prudent formulation of goals...”14

We recall that it was the actual assessment of the situation and threats to national security that forced the President to start the special military operation on February 24, 2022 due to the following reasons: transformation of Ukraine into an “Anti-Russia”; ongoing shelling of Donbass residents; NATO countries ignoring the basic requirements of security guarantees officially presented by Russia in December 2021 ¹⁵ and serving as a last opportunity for a diplomatic settlement of issues related to Russia’s defense of its sovereignty and preventing the advance of NATO’s military infrastructure to Russian borders; that is, for a peaceful dialogue with the West, which Russia has been conducting since Vladimir Putin’s 2007 Munich speech, in fact for 14 years.

In March 2023, the very appearance and firmness of the wording of Russia’s new Foreign Policy Concept were also largely dictated by the objective geopolitical conditions; “realistic assessment of oneself and others”, and “correlation of necessity and possibility”.

For example, Russia, in fact, was able to declare itself a “unique country-civilization” opposing the West only after the whole world was in motion and the leaders of different countries (China, India, Brazil, etc.) began to publicly declare the threat of hegemony and despotism, the need and the inevitability of a multipolar world, and the importance of national sovereignty.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi: “Both India and Russia dream of a multipolar world. This is what the world needs today. We have moved from a bipolar world to a unipolar one, but now we are gradually moving toward a multipolar world... India and Russia share the same point of view on this issue”¹⁶.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi: “The construction of a multipolar world cannot be stopped. There are already many centers of power outside the Western world”¹⁷.

Chinese President Xi Jinping: “Hegemony, despotism and harassment cause serious harm to the world... No country is superior to all others. There is no universal model of public administration and there is no world order where the decisive word belongs to a single country”¹⁸.

Brazilian President Lula da Silva: “Why should all countries base their trade on the dollar? Who decided that our currencies are weak, that they have no value in other countries? Who decided that the dollar became the [main international] currency after the disappearance of the gold standard?”¹⁹

And it is not just words. First, it is an indicator of the real change of forces in geopolitical competition; this, in particular is proved by official statistics: over the period from 1990 to 2021, the U.S. share in world GDP decreased from 20 to 16%, and that of China increased from 4 to 19% (Fig. 1) . Moreover, this trend has been observed over the past 30 years. Since 2017, China has topped the world economy, which in fact reflects the thesis expressed by Vladimir Putin on July 20, 2022 at the “Strong Ideas for a New Time” Forum: “No matter how much the West and the supranational elite strive to preserve the existing order, a new era and a new stage in world history are coming. Only genuinely sovereign states are in a position to ensure a high growth dynamic and become a role model for others in terms of standards of living and quality of life, the protection of traditional values and high humanistic ideals, and development models where an individual is not a means, but the ultimate goal” ²⁰ .

Second, the struggle of many countries for their national sovereignty against the global hegemony of the United States is their natural reaction to the U.S. colonialist policy, which is conducted openly and which is legislatively enshrined in official strategic documents . According to the U.S. National Security Strategy 2015, “the question is never whether America should lead”; moreover, according to the Interim National Security Strategic Guidance 2021, the U.S provides itself with a right “to shape the future of international politics to advance our interests”.

Figure 1. Share of the U.S. and China in world GDP (by PPP) in 1990–2021, % of the total

Source: World Bank.

Excerpt from the U.S. National Security Strategy of February 13, 2015 (signed by U.S. President B. Obama): “ ...the question is not whether America will lead, but how we will lead into the future... American leadership is a global force for good, but it is grounded in our enduring national interests... ”²¹

Excerpts from the U.S. Interim National Security Strategic Guidance published on March 3, 2021 (two months after J. Biden came to power):

“We must prove that our model isn’t a relic of history; it’s the single best way to realize the promise of our future...

To achieve these goals (as history already shows), the “hegemon” is ready to use any means to maintain leadership: from the policy of “double standards”, ignoring the norms of international law and destroying the economy of its own satellites (as it did to Germany, for example) to the military invasion of other countries, active interference in the internal affairs of other nation-states in order to incite intra-ethnic conflicts and organize coups d’etat, “fighting Russia down to the last Ukrainian”, and terrorist attacks.

Thus, by designating itself as a unique “countrycivilization”, Russia not only assumes the function of protecting the entire Russian world, but also declares that such a status is possible, that there are many such nation-states, and that Russia will continue to “eliminate the vestiges of domination by the U.S. in global affairs” ²³ as long as the West does not recognize this fact and take it into account.

A sober assessment of the situation has ultimately proved the West to be “the source of the main risks to the security of the Russian Federation”24. We are talking about a direct involvement of NATO member States in the conflict with Russia on the side of the “Kiev regime”: through an unprecedented scale of sanctions pressure on the Russian economy, military assistance to the Armed Forces of Ukraine (pumping the country with weapons, intelligence support, military personnel training, etc.), terrorist attacks, which American experts called “a criminal act of war committed contrary to the U.S. Constitution”25, not to mention terrorist attacks on the territory of Russia26.

The RF President called the explosions of the Nord Stream and Nord Stream-2 gas pipelines, which occurred on September 26, 2022, “a terrorist act committed at the state level”²⁷, and some experts have directly pointed out that “undermining the strategic infrastructure of a country... may well serve as “casus belli” (reason to start a war)” ²⁸.

At the same time, an investigation²⁹ by American journalist, Pulitzer Prize winner S. Hersh who “specializes in investigations of the most carefully kept secrets of the CIA, the Pentagon and other U.S. government structures”³⁰ has revealed that “the operation was prepared and carried out by the American military and special services with the help of colleagues from Norway” ³¹.

In other words, everything confirms what experts are saying: “In the eyes of the West we are the ones who challenged it… It is ready to destroy us because we are its existential enemy”32. This idea is also reflected in the Foreign Policy Concept in the form of the provision that “the United States and its satellites” consider the “strengthening of Russia” and its “independent foreign policy” a “threat to Western hegemony”.

The gap between these two documents is almost 75 years, during which many similar projects containing plans to eliminate Russia as a nationstate have been published33. However, judging by the nature of the goals put forward in the sources that we are reviewing in Inserts 2–3, it is quite obvious what kind of “future” awaited Russia (or rather, what kind of future was in store for Russia) if it continued moving toward integration with the West. And while the plans nurtured by its leader (USA) in the middle of the 20th century can already be called a fait accompli (after the liquidation of the USSR, the task of “reducing the power and influence of Moscow” can be considered fulfilled; Insert 2), the goals publicly declared by the Collective West in the post-Soviet period (in particular, the “decolonization of Russia”) remain unachieved mainly due to the SMO and the general course of foreign policy pursued by the RF President.

Thus, having analyzed the President’s key decisions, expert assessments, global trends, and officially published strategic documents of Russia and the United States, we can draw two conclusions.

1. In many respects, the President acts like he has no other choice, but such actions are necessary.
2. The decisions taken by the head of state after the start of the SMO are becoming more clear and resolute. According to the requirements of the real assessment of threats to national security, and as the whole world is changing along with the development of a civilizational conflict between Russia and NATO members, the contours of a multipolar world are finally taking shape.

The adoption of a new Foreign Policy Concept is another step taken by the President to determine Russia’s place in this new future world that, in fact, has already arrived; moreover, Russia’s place should be worthy of its history, culture, historical territory, human and intellectual potential, as well as the possibilities of the country’s participation in addressing modern global issues.

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However, foreign policy is always connected with domestic policy; and the fact that Russia has finally turned its back on any attempts of integrating into the modern Western world, which is outlined in the new Concept, requires significant changes within the country: if Russia has the opportunity to declare a sovereign foreign policy, then it must do the same in domestic policy, and this goal still has to be achieved.

“The establishment of Russia as a countrycivilization is of great and decisive importance for domestic policy. After all, it is impossible to act as a country-civilization in foreign policy, and remain, albeit sovereign, but still part of a liberal Westerncentric system, sharing its approaches, values and principles in domestic policy”36.

“There is a feeling that there are two Russias : the first one is deeply embedded in the Western world, Western consciousness, Western way of life... The second Russia, which forms a new growing branch of the state, is in a very complex interaction with the first... These two Russias reveal themselves in today’s ideological and political battle... This explains the apparent inconsistency of Russian policy, the halfway, inaccurate rhetoric ” ³⁸ .

In 2021 , when reviewing one of the key documents defining the vector of development of the Russian Federation – the National Security Strategy ³⁹ , philosopher A. Dugin noted: “The positive core of the national security doctrine is brilliant, and it enjoys full support and solidarity. Nevertheless, we cannot but note some inherent contradictions it contains. The sovereign patriotic realist document is mined with liberal inclusions ” ⁴⁰ .

It is worth mentioning that for many years a significant part of experts have characterized Vladimir Putin’s policy as contradictory and ambiguous.

For example, back in 2012 , I. Bunin, president of the Center for Political Technologies Foundation, said that Vladimir Putin’s policy is “two steps forward – one step back, or even: step forward – step back ” ³⁷ .

In 2016 , the writer A. Prokhanov, analyzing the current situation in the country, wrote the following:

Yu. Vorotnikov (Chairman of the Political Technologies Committee for the Russian Association of Public Relations) on the 2022 National Security Strategy of the Russian Federation: “The absence of a unifying concept indicates that a unified idea of the future of Russia has not yet been developed”⁴¹

It is also worth noting that even today, in 2023 , i.e. after the start of the SMO, some experts say that “Putin’s ideological project has some kind of

“A mature Russia under Vladimir Putin has not been formed yet as a full-fledged and consistent state. She is at a crossroads. Although it would seem that a number of Rubicons have already been crossed – some were crossed after the events at Bolotnaya Square in 2011–2012, others – in 2014, and some very important events – in 2022...

The format of “Putin’s stability” still dominates us, even now, after a whole year of hot fighting. Why is this so? First of all, because the powerful clusters of the old order, the order before the SMO and even before the Crimean triumph, continue to live, rule each in their own sphere, do their own thing...”⁴²

internal duality, incompleteness , which is a huge deterrent to launching a nationwide mobilization project in Russia” ⁴³ .

Perhaps we can agree with experts that the duality and inconsistency in the policy of the head of state is largely due to the fact that “he relies on the people, but the elites just don’t understand him” ⁴⁴ .

Let us provide some facts to prove the point. According to the monitoring sociological measurements, broad social strata support the President’s activities – both in general and in relation to the course of independent foreign policy pursued by Russia.

V Thus, according to VCIOM , the overwhelming number of Russians believe that Russia must pursue an independent foreign policy. Moreover, in the past 15 years (from 2008 to 2023), the proportion of those who share this point of view has increased from 54 to 67% (Tab. 2) .

Table 2. Russians’ attitude toward Russia’s foreign policy goals, % of respondents

Answer option 2008 2023 Dynamics (+/-) Russia should pursue an independent foreign policy, but not seek to dictate its terms to other countries 54 67 +13 Russia should behave like a great power, dictate its will to other countries 24 18 -6 Russia’s foreign policy may not be independent if it does not contradict the interests of its citizens 8 7 -1 Russia’s foreign policy should be subordinated to global interests, even if national interests are affected 2 2 0 I find it difficult to answer 11 6 -5 Source: VCIOM data. Russia’s foreign policy course: Fighting for sovereignty. Analytical review. April 10, 2023. Available at: https://wciom. ru/analytical-reviews/analiticheskii-obzor/vneshnepoliticheskii-kurs-rossii-v-borbe-za-suverenitet Wording of the question: “In the modern world, some States dictate their conditions to other countries, some conduct an independent foreign policy without imposing their views on anyone, and many States do not conduct an independent foreign policy. What do you think Russia’s foreign policy should be?”. Ranked according to the data for 2023.

V More than 80% of Russians note that this is exactly the policy pursued by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Over the period from 2008 to 2023, the share of those who hold this opinion has increased nationwide from 79 to 87% (Tab. 3) .

V According to VolRC RAS, the share of people who believe that the President is preoccupied mainly with the country’s international standing has increased almost twofold ⁴⁵ during all of Vladimir Putin’s presidential terms (from

2000 to 2022; by 32 percentage points, from 26 to 58%; Tab. 4; Insert 4 ).

V The share of those who consider the President’s actions to strengthen Russia’s international positions to be successful has exceeded the share of those who share the opposite opinion over the past 23 years (by 15–20 percentage points; Tab. 4; Insert 4 ). Although we should note that the share of negative assessments regarding the course of the President’s foreign policy for the period from 2000 to 2022 has not changed significantly (31–32% ⁴⁶ ).

Table 3. Russians’ attitude toward Russia’s current foreign policy, % of respondents

Answer option 2008 2023 Dynamics (+/-) Russia defends its national interests regardless of whether the governments of other countries like it or not 33 59 +26 Russia is trying to defend its national interests, but it does not always succeed in doing so 46 28 -18 Russia practically fails to defend its national interests; it does the bidding of the governments of other countries 8 5 -3 I find it difficult to answer 13 8 -5 Source: VCIOM data. Russia’s foreign policy course: Fighting for sovereignty. Analytical review. April 10, 2023. Available at: https://wciom. ru/analytical-reviews/analiticheskii-obzor/vneshnepoliticheskii-kurs-rossii-v-borbe-za-suverenitet Wording of the question: “How would you describe the foreign policy that Russia is pursuing today?”. Ranked according to the data for 2023.

Table 4. Attitude of Vologda Oblast residents toward the President’s work on the implementation of Russia’s foreign policy course, % of respondents

Answer option	2000	2022	Dynamics (+/-)
Proportion of those who believe that the President is preoccupied mainly with the country’s international position*	25.9	58.2	+32
Proportion of those who consider the President’s actions to strengthen Russia’s international position successful**	42.3	47.7	+5
Proportion of those who consider the President’s actions to strengthen Russia’s international position unsuccessful**	30.9	32.1	+1
VolRC RAS data for the Vologda Oblast. * Wording of the question: “What do you think is the major concern of the RF President?”. ** Wording of the question: “How successfully, in your opinion, is the President coping with the problem of strengthening Russia’s international position?”. More details are provided in Insert 4.

45 The source of sociological data for RAS Vologda Research Center is the monitoring of public opinion, carried out since 1996 on the territory of the Vologda Oblast.

Monitoring is carried out once every two months; 1,500 respondents over the age of 18 are interviewed in the cities of Vologda and Cherepovets, and in Babaevsky, Velikoustyugsky, Vozhegodsky, Gryazovetsky, Tarnogsky municipal okrugs and in Kirillovsky, Nikolsky, Sheksninsky municipal districts. The representativeness of the sample is ensured by observing the proportions between urban and rural population; between residents of settlements of various types (rural settlements, small and medium-sized cities); gender and age structure of the adult population of the Oblast. Survey method is questionnaire poll at the place of residence of respondents. Sampling error does not exceed 3%.

More detailed information about the survey results is available at the official website of VolRC RAS:

⁴⁶ Such a share of negative judgments is typical of most socio-demographic groups. Slightly more negative assessments were noted among low-income groups and residents of Vologda, among whom the proportion of those who consider the President’s actions to strengthen Russia’s international position unsuccessful is 40–41% (for more information, see Insert 5 ).

V We should also note that when Russia is living through hard times and amid escalating threats to national security, all the strata of Russian society show increasing support for the political course implemented by Vladimir Putin. This is evidenced by the results of the year that has passed since the beginning of the SMO (in 2022, compared with 2021, support for the head of state increased by 5–6 percentage points in all major sociodemographic groups; Tab. 5 ).

And this becomes even more evident when we look at the results of Vladimir Putin’s first presidential term, against the background of the “historical catastrophe” that the country went through in the late 1990s. Support for Vladimir

“The concentration of power in the hands of Yeltsin and his clique led to a historic catastrophe . It manifested itself in the death of about 10 million people who simply had not survived the “reforms” of the 1990s; in the collapse of most of the industry and agriculture; in the loss of all foreign policy positions . This is, in fact, an external governance regime , when American advisers were sitting in the offices of Russian ministries and dictating what to do and how to do it”⁴⁷

Putin during his first presidency (2000–2003) exceeded than that of Boris Yeltsin in the last years of his presidency (1998–1999) by 50–60 percentage points, and in almost all population groups (Tab. 5) .

Table 5. Dynamics of the level of approval of the President’s activities in various socio-demographic groups, % of respondents

Population group	Average annual data		Dynamics (+/-)	Average annual data		Dynamics (+ /-)
Population group	1998–1999 (last years of Boris Yeltsin’s presidency)	2000–2003 (Vladimir Putin’s first presidential term)	Dynamics (+/-)	2021 (year before SMO)	2022 (year when SMO was launched)	Dynamics (+ /-)
Sex
Men	12.7	65.8	+53	48.7	54.3	+6
Women	9.9	66.0	+56	53.7	59.2	+6
Age
Under 30	10.4	68.8	+58	46.7	51.4	+5
30–55	11.0	65.2	+54	49.3	54.9	+6
Over 55	12.3	64.4	+52	55.8	61.6	+6
Education
Secondary and incomplete secondary	11.9	61.9	+50	46.0	51.4	+5
Secondary vocational	10.5	66.6	+56	52.0	58.1	+6
Higher and incomplete higher	10.9	70.1	+59	56.4	62.4	+6
Income group
Bottom 20%	9.5	55.4	+46	38.4	40.8	+2
Middle 60%	11.1	68.3	+57	53.9	59.8	+6
Top 20%	15.2	73.2	+58	62.6	64.0	+1
Territory
Vologda	10.4	66.2	+56	45.1	48.0	+3
Cherepovets	10.4	64.6	+54	57.3	63.8	+7
Districts	11.9	66.5	+55	51.7	58.1	+6
Oblast	11.2	65.9	+55	51.4	57.0	+6
TOTAL number of positive and negative changes in all groups			14 / 0			14 / 0
Source: VolRC RAS public opinion monitoring. Wording of the question: “How do you assess the current work of the RF President?”.

47 Afonin Yu. Yeltsin is a traitor and the personification of catastrophes. Available at:

Insert 4

international arena increased by 32 percentage points (from 26 to 58%).

The proportion of those who consider the actions of the head of state to strengthen Russia’s international standing successful annually exceeds the proportion of people who share the opposite point of view. At the same time, during all of Vladimir Putin’s presidential terms, the share of positive judgments increased by 5 percentage points (from 42 to 47%).

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Thus, public opinion trends (registered by various research organizations) provide an answer to the question why Vladimir Putin throughout his presidential terms has the opportunity to rely on the support of the majority of Russians, including in the implementation of his foreign policy course.

However, the same cannot be said in relation to a significant part of the elites, because “many of the carriers of Westernism are still in Putin’s entourage, but they do not oppose him openly; rather, they pretend to be his friends (the so-called sixth column)…” ⁴⁸

Currently, amid the ongoing SMO, some of the representatives of big business engage in quite a “legitimate” and public propaganda, which, although subtly, but persistently pushes forward the idea that Russia’s struggle for its national sovereignty is the wrong course and that it is necessary at all costs to “make it up” with the West, starting with the termination of the SMO on any conditions dictated by the Kiev (or NATO) regime. In particular, on March 2, 2023, at the Krasnoyarsk Economic Forum, businessman O. Deripaska said that “the state apparatus and state capitalism are a dead-end track”; and according to experts, this is a “subtle manipulation” leading to the fact that “the most reasonable thing would be to sell our army, population and territory to the enemy” (Insert 6) .

In addition, throughout virtually the entire period of the SMO, there still emerge concrete examples (facts) of the conduct and managerial decisions of officials that contradict the position taken by the head of state and the opinion of the majority of Russians (we give such examples in virtually every article49). This includes ostentatious disregard for state symbols and for the President personally; discrediting the Russian army and patronizing pro-Ukrainian propaganda actions, etc. (Insert 7).

The facts given in Inserts 6–7 clearly explain why the war that our country is currently forced to engage in is “not only against the direct enemy – Ukrainian Nazism and the globalist liberal West supporting it, but also against the injustice that sometimes happens inside Russia itself ” ⁵⁰ .

And although there are many factors that currently do not allow the President to carry out a personnel revolution “from above” (for example, the lack of personnel replacements due to the fact that in Russia the process of genesis of the elites is stalling” ⁵¹ ; the emerging internal vulnerabilities in the system of public administration, which in the context of the SMO can be used by external enemies, etc.), the head of state acts in accordance with his “ideology of healthy conservatism”, i.e. he solves problems methodically, consistently, proceeding from “a realistic assessment of oneself and others, a precise alignment of priorities, a correlation of necessity and possibility” ( Insert 8 presents the RF President’s key decisions, which we have been monitoring since April 2022).

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Thus, the “ideology of healthy conservatism”, which Vladimir Putin has been guided by throughout his presidential terms, on the one hand, causes some discontent among experts and society as a whole for the reason that many internal problems are becoming stagnant and lingering, and the measures to neutralize them are “long overdue” ⁶⁰ .

On the other hand, we cannot but admit that such a strategy has allowed the President over the past 20 years to change the status of Russia from a country defeated by the Collective West in the Cold War (with all the ensuing consequences such as the collapse of the USSR and the 30-year hegemony of the victors), to the opportunity to publicly, at the legislative level, declare itself as a “countrycivilization”, the “core of the Russian world” that protects the right to exist and represents not only its own interests, but the interests of virtually all nation-states who openly and actively declare the inadmissibility of a unipolar world and the importance of national sovereignty.

The new Foreign Policy Concept firmly states that Russia is no longer a modern liberal West. However, now this clear fact, which is still quite hard to believe, requires an equally clear continu- ation in domestic policy, based on a simple principle formulated by the head of state: “We had to do it ourselves. And we did it. And we did it better. And if we didn’t have to, we wouldn’t have done it”61.

To declare the status and goals for the coming years is one thing; to defend these statements in the face of external threats is another; but no less important is the internal situation in the country – the fact that the majority of representatives of all social strata support the general course implemented by the President. After all, “if Russia remains part of this world mentally, economically and socially in such a wobbly condition, then the bell will toll for it, too ” ⁶² .

Public opinion trends indicate that time is ripe for Russia to have a domestic policy concept, which, as clearly and firmly as the Foreign Policy Concept, would set out the guidelines and algorithm to overcome its “mentally, economically and socially wobbly” state and strive toward a welfare state that ensures and protects the priority of traditional moral values, the possibility of implementing an independent foreign policy and social justice for the majority of its population.

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