how nationalism and machine politics mix in russiacising it. But in 2014, the Kremlin began to lose control of the
nationalist issue, starting to make it more risky for the authorities
to avoid nationalism than to accentuate it. The key event was the
overthrow of the Ukrainian president who had long been sup-
ported by Putin as an advocate for closer integration with Russia,
Viktor Yanukovych. The Ukrainian leader had been ousted by
forces that not only made joining Europe a central part of their
agenda, but that also harboured many elements deeply hostile to
Russia itself. Not only did these events make Putin look weak
as an advocate for post- Soviet reintegration, but they raised the
spectre of Russia’s losing its Ukrainian base for the militarily vital
Black Sea Fleet in Crimea. This meant for Putin that if he did not
react strongly, he would likely lose support to those parties that
had consistently been calling for a more assertive Russia. Or at
least he would be ceding to them a central issue they could use
against him later. Better, in that case, to lead the politicisation of
nationalism than to be on the defensive if others led it.
Second, if Putin had taken a strongly nationalistic stance in the
past, he would have risked alienating large numbers of liberals
and modernisers in key cities like Moscow and St Petersburg;
while some of these groups supported nationalist ideas, many
were strongly opposed to them. But much support from these
classes was already lost in late 2011, when they turned out in
huge numbers to protest election fraud in the parliamentary elec-
tions, as described above. This lowered the political risks involved
in politicising nationalism because the groups most likely to be
alienated were already alienated. Moreover, the 2011–12 wave
of protests had largely died out by the end of 2013, but events
in Ukraine threatened to revive it, giving those dissatisfied with
Putin new hope that street action could actually succeed in chang-
ing a regime. This made it imperative to find a way to consolidate
the Kremlin’s hold over the support of that part of the population
that was still sympathetic. And perhaps even more importantly,
the massive 2011–12 protests had involved not just pro- Western
liberals and democratic modernisers, but also many nationalists
who had been dissatisfied with the Putin regime. In this context,
appearing weak as Ukraine was lost could have inspired the
nationalists to return to the streets as well, perhaps in numbers