Russia’s Pro-Putin Elites

In March, a group of terrorists attacked the Crocus City Hall, a music venue and vast shopping complex on the outskirts of Moscow. Four gunmen shot into crowds indiscriminately and started a fire that caused the building to collapse, killing over 140 people. Islamic State Khorasan, or ISIS-K, an Afghanistan-based branch of the militant group, claimed responsibility for the attack. But the Russian government blamed Ukraine for the carnage, and, by extension, the West.

Many outside Russia saw the deadly terrorist attack—the worst in Russia since the 2004 Beslan school siege—as a major failure of the country’s supposedly infallible secret services and a humiliation for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Western media speculated about how the event could influence the military campaign in Ukraine, erode the unity among Russia’s elites, potentially turn the broader public away from the government, and undermine the president’s image as the guarantor of a powerful, unified state.

Russians would not be blamed if the killings in Moscow provoked them to anger at the Kremlin. In the weeks leading up to the atrocity, Russian leaders received warnings not only from the United States, an adversary, but also from Iran, a Russian partner, that such an attack might take place. U.S. intelligence even specified that Crocus City Hall was a likely target. And yet Russian authorities did little to head off the terrorists. In a democratic state, the fact that the government had advance warning of a terrorist attack of this magnitude would have caused major outrage, leading to inquests and repercussions for officials who failed to keep the public safe.

But not in today’s Russia. Rather than fragmenting, Russia’s elites are becoming increasingly bellicose and marching in lockstep with the regime. The terrorist attack and its aftermath have demonstrated the country’s imperturbability. Russian society is aligned with the state and broadly accepts Putin’s resolute hostility to Ukraine and the West.

IF YOU CAN’T BEAT THEM

Before the March attack, many top Russian officials had in fact pronounced at length on the threat posed by Islamist groups and from ISIS-K in Afghanistan. Alexander Bortnikov, director of the Federal Security Service, Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of the Security Council, and Sergei Shoigu, the defense minister, had warned about the escalating threat of ISIS-K, insisting that the organization sought to establish new militant training camps and recruit supporters with the intention of striking Russia. But after the massacre in March, they swiftly pivoted away from Islamist terrorism. Instead, they spewed speculative vitriol about a “Ukrainian trail,” suggesting that Kyiv had some involvement in the attack. Fortunately for them, this narrative turned out to be the only storyline palatable to Putin: the president’s fixation with Ukraine allowed the Russian security services an opportunity to obscure their failure to prevent the terrorist attack.

During a period when officials and the media might have focused on addressing the threat of Islamist violence and exploring effective countermeasures, they instead directed attention toward possible Ukrainian aggression. This deflection is not altogether surprising. The conflict with Ukraine and, more broadly, the existential confrontation with the West have profoundly reinforced a sense of tunnel vision among the Russian elites. The truth is secondary to the Kremlin’s fictions. Those who were aware that Ukraine was not to blame were compelled to remain silent, while others parroted the most politically safe narrative. If you were to ask a high-profile individual in Moscow off the record whether he genuinely believed that Ukraine was responsible for the violence, you might hear speculative comments suggesting that Americans are waging war against Russia, with Ukraine and even radical Islamists involved as the West’s opportunistic tools. In Russia, many observers see a connection between the West and Islamist militants. Pro-war Russian channels on the social media platform Telegram have widely propagated the notion that U.S. actions and the West’s mishandling of regional conflicts are responsible for the emergence of ISIS, al Qaeda, and other extremist groups.

The truth is secondary to the Kremlin’s fictions.

Many of Russia’s elites readily blur the distinctions between Islamist terrorists, Ukrainians, and Americans, viewing them as components of a world system defined by its hostility to Russia. In their view, it makes no difference who perpetrated the Crocus City Hall attack. The important thing is that the attack was further evidence of a broad conspiracy against Russia, emanating from a global order that must be transformed.

More than two years of war have made the Russian elites more anti-Western and anti-Ukrainian than ever, binding them to Putin as their sole assurance of survival. The anti-Western narrative is now pervasive across all segments of the elite, including the siloviki (members of the security services), technocrats within the administration, former liberals now serving Putin, and hawks. This uniformity significantly narrows the potential for future dialogue with the West. The very idea of compromise with the West is repellent to many in the elite. Putin’s reelection in March, in which he won an unprecedented 87 percent of the vote, has reinforced among many the belief that change is impossible, fostering a sense of both powerlessness and dependence. In this situation, all one can do is accept reality: a Russia that is repressive, aggressive, jingoistic, and merciless. It’s not that elites trust Putin—it’s that to survive they have to reconcile themselves to the implacable, tightening grasp of the regime. Those who hoped to simply wait out this period of repression and zealotry now realize that there is no returning to the way things were. The only escape from despair and hopelessness that seems viable requires them to join the ranks of Putin’s devotees: becoming pro-war, radically anti-Western, and often gleeful about anything that hints at the crumbling of the U.S.-led international rules-based order.

The war and Putin’s escalating confrontation with the West are foreclosing the space for internal divisions and disagreements. In matters of national security and geopolitics, Putin has managed to forge an impressively homogenous political landscape where nothing can challenge the commitment to the war in Ukraine and hostility to the West. The regime has denied the dissenting segment of society—which accounts for approximately 25 percent of the population, a significant proportion, according to the surveys conducted by the Levada Center, Russia’s most reliable independent polling agency—any meaningful political infrastructure and the ability to express antiwar sentiment without risking imprisonment.

TO THE BITTER END

Many Western observers assumed that war fatigue, resource shortages, and intelligence failures would spur public dissatisfaction, internal conflicts among elite, and disillusionment with Putin. That has demonstrably not happened. A centripetal force is bearing down on Russia, with the Kremlin exerting greater control over state and society. Both the Russian elite and the broader public desire peace, but strictly on terms favorable to Russia—ideally with the de facto capitulation of Ukraine. They want Russia at a minimum to evade suffering a strategic defeat in Ukraine, but what constitutes an acceptable victory remains a matter of debate. Even to that nebulous end, they appear ready to fight forever.

Judging by off-the-record talks I had with contacts in Moscow, it became clear that nobody is looking for an exit strategy from the war or an opportunity to initiate dialogue with the West; nobody is concerned with persuading the West to ease sanctions; nobody is hungry for compromise with Ukraine, at least under its current leadership. There is no conjecture about what would constitute an acceptable deal to end this conflict. Instead, the Russian leadership and elites are proceeding on the basis that Russia cannot afford to lose the war, and to ensure it does not, the country must keep up the pressure on Ukraine, for no matter how long. The exact nature of that victory remains vague in the minds of Russian elites, who instead seem to find more safety in Russia’s posture of aggression alone. The war has become a goal in and of itself, serving multiple purposes: it staves off defeat, creates new opportunities for career growth and business ventures, and boosts the economy. Critiquing the war makes you an enemy of the state (and by extension, the public) and hoping for its imminent end is too wishful; a Russian defeat, after all, could make many in the country vulnerable to being held accountable for complicity in war crimes perpetrated in Ukraine.

Some observers argue that Ukraine should acknowledge that it cannot retake all the territories conquered by Russia and that Kyiv should be willing to cede land to Moscow to pave the way to peace. But that may not be enough for the Kremlin and the elites that serve it. Putin’s dispute over territory is a strategy rather than a final objective; his ultimate goal is not the seizure of a few provinces but the disbanding of Ukraine as a state in its present political form.

A centripetal force is bearing down on Russia, with the Kremlin exerting greater control over state and society.

In this context, French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent comments about the necessity of sending Western troops to Ukraine “if the Russians were to break through the frontlines” have significant implications. France’s decision to intensify Western discussions about boots on the ground in Ukraine, along with giving Ukraine greater license to use Western arms to strike targets in Russian territory, have made the Kremlin more willing to escalate. This week, Putin ordered his forces to carry out exercises related to the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons, explicitly signaling that Moscow will not hesitate to use such arms if the Western presence in Ukraine grows more threatening.

As Russian leaders weigh which nuclear options might best deter the West from taking bolder steps in Ukraine, many within the Russian elite welcome the escalation. “How does Europe not understand this?” one Moscow source in policymaking circles told me. “There’s noticeable excitement among the elites and the military: the prospect of engaging NATO soldiers is far more motivating than confronting Ukrainians. For Putin, any form of intervention would be a welcome scenario.”

In addition, there is a belief in Moscow’s corridors of powers that the deployment of Western soldiers to Ukraine would actually work in Russia’s favor, since it would inevitably result in Western casualties and consequently exacerbate divisions within Western societies and political classes, leading to the weakening of Western support for Ukraine. Many in Russia are in fact eagerly anticipating the further escalation of the conflict, confident in their country’s invincibility.

FOREVER WAR

Among Russian elites, the prevailing belief is that only a military defeat or a prolonged, severe financial crisis could halt their country’s momentum. Right now, neither seems imminent. Against this backdrop, the Crocus City Hall attack is perceived as merely a minor incident in a broader existential conflict with the U.S.-led international order, of which Islamic terrorism is seen as a byproduct. The Kremlin’s insistence that challenging the West—and revising the flawed and dangerous global order—will make the world safer has proved remarkably persuasive. Many Russians see defeating Ukraine as a crucial step in the Kremlin’s anti-Western agenda. Forget territorial gains or even preventing NATO expansion—establishing a political regime in Ukraine that is friendly to Russia, thereby denying the West a beachhead on Ukrainian soil, would mark a significant defeat for the West. Although this objective is on its face unrealistic and hard to attain, it drives Putin’s military strategy.

Neither terrorist attacks nor the prospect of Western boots on the ground in Ukraine can deter this broadly shared commitment to an anti-Western strategy. Attempting to appease Putin is futile, and wishfully seeking for fragmentation within Russia is unlikely to be effective as long as the country remains financially robust, maintains the upper hand over Ukraine, and secures total domestic control. The authorities are rapidly becoming more hawkish, the elites are increasingly embracing Putin’s war agenda, and the broader society is unable (or indeed unwilling) to exert the kind of pressure that might push Russia in a different directions. Western leaders face the unenviable task of determining how to engage with a Russia that has grown increasingly self-confident, bold, and radical.