In a concise analysis, professor and historian Serhiy Radchenko claims that the reason why mass protests do not break out in Russia, as in China or Iran, is not related to the tendency of Russians to authoritarianism.

“The most important factor is economic. The Russians are not doing very well, but compared to where they were 20 years ago, they are doing relatively well,” he said in a series of posts on his Twitter page.

He reminds that now Russia’s GDP per capita is 5 times higher than two decades ago and reaches more than 12,000 dollars.

“The impact of sanctions is felt, inflation is increasing, but now it is not like in the 1990s. In the 1990s, the city I lived in (in the Russian Far East) suffered from daily power outages, no hot water, and often cold weather, and no one bombed it,” he reports.

Radchenko also says that Russia is a moderately repressive society:

“We know, for example, what brave and honest activists like [Alexei] Navalny and [Vladimir] Kara Murza is in prison, and there are laws to imprison anyone for trumped-up reasons. But people can see their lives in many ways as before, if they don’t mind.”

Russians have not yet fully felt the consequences of the war

Radtsenko also says that daily life in Russia has a certain normalization, unlike in China after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“So life goes on, more or less as before. The exception is, of course, that some are introduced to die in Ukraine. But, what is important, it is still a small number” compared to the total population of Russia, he notes.

The Russian-born historian also says that the fact that the state of affairs with the war is still somewhat new also helps Vladimir Putin’s regime.

“The war began in February, an eternity ago, but not everyone has yet felt its reality. This is partly related to what I said above: life is moving forward more or less than before, and war is something that happens far away, not here and now,” he says.

Serhiy Radchenko also notes that Russia is still releasing people from the country, even if they cannot leave for Europe. But those who were most afraid of partial mobilization by order of Vladimir Putin on September 21 were allowed to leave for Kazakhstan, Georgia, Turkey or Mongolia.

It was not until early November, more than a month after the incorporation began, that the Russian parliament announced that it was considering jailing those who evaded mobilization.

Vladimir Putin’s regime has not yet reached a tipping point

“Russia is not a pressure cooker,” Radchenko notes, adding that Putin got the effect of rallying people around the flag, which the leaders of China and Iran did not.

“Although it was Russia that invaded Ukraine, there is a new factor against it in this war,” he notes.

Radchenko, a professor at the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs and the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, says that in this sense, Kremlin propaganda has also been helped by some measures taken in the West, such as declaring Russia a state sponsor of terrorism or banning Russians from entering into the country by individual EU member states.

“Those who understand the problematic nature of these measures in Russia (including me) have long drawn attention to this,” he concludes.

However, let us remind you that other analysts, such as researcher Kamil Galeyev or Professor Timothy D. Snyder from Yale University and the London School of Economics, adhere to a tougher line regarding the sanctions imposed against Russia.

A more detailed analysis of the reasons why protests against the regime do not break out in Russia can be read HERE.

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