Leaders 15A
ndrei sakharov, a Sovietdissidentandphysicist,usedto
argue that repression at home invariably becomes instabil
ity abroad. His own life was evidence of it. His internal exile was
lifted in 1986 by Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Union’s last lead
er, who as the architect of glasnostreleased political prisoners
and tolerated free speech. It was no accident that Mr Gorbachev’s
rejection of repression coincided with the end of the cold war.
Today Sakharov’s thesis is being demonstrated once again—
in reverse. According to Memorial, a humanrights group, Rus
sia has more than twice as many political prisoners than at the
end of the Soviet era. Memorial, which Sakharov helped set up to
document Soviet abuses, has itself been branded a “foreign
agent” and attacked by statesponsored thugs (see Briefing).
At the same time, Russia’s relations with the West have also
entered a dark period. In order to justify repression at home,
President Vladimir Putin is telling his people that Western pol
icy is designed to obliterate the Russian way of life. Mr Putin
now builds in coldwar confrontation to his dealings with the
West. Its leaders need to prepare for what comes next.
The latest phase of repression began in 2020 with the poison
ing of Alexei Navalny, Russia’s most famous political prisoner,
and winner last month of the European Parliament’s Sakharov
prize for freedom of thought. Mr Navalny survived the attack,
only to be incarcerated and abused in Penal Col
ony No 2, one of the country’s harshest jails.
Since then, Mr Navalny’s organisation has
been outlawed and much of his team chased
out of the country. Those who stayed are being
pursued. On November 9th Lilia Chanysheva
was arrested and now faces ten years in prison
for having worked for Mr Navalny while his or
ganisation was still legal. The net is spreading
beyond politics. The same day, Sergei Zuev, the 67yearold head
of the top liberal university in Russia, who is recovering from
heart treatment, was taken from house arrest to a prison cell,
perhaps to force a false confession in a fabricated case.
A third of the Russian government’s budget is spent on secu
rity and defence. Much of this is directed inwards, at the sort of
people The Economist features this week in a documentary film
(see economist.com/russiafilm): people who have had enough
of Mr Putin’s rule and the corruption of his regime. As incomes
have fallen and discontent has grown, so Russia’s many police
and security services have swollen. With 10% more staff than in
2014, they now outnumber Russia’s activeduty military forces.
For Mr Putin, repression does not have a reverse gear. He will
not be able to restore the prosperity that helped buoy his ratings
during his first decade in power. True, the fortress economy that
the Kremlin has developed since 2014 can withstand sanctions,
especially when energy prices are high, as now. But Russia,
which is more like Iran than China, does not have the dynamism
to generate sustained, robust growth.
Hence the logic of confrontation. Soviet rulers waged the
cold war from atop the ideology of communism. Russia’s secu
rocrats assert that traditional values of family, culture and histo
ry are being corrupted by the liberal and licentious West and that
onlytheycandefendthem.Fightingbackagainst the West lets
the Kremlin portray all those who oppose it—journalists, hu
manrights lawyers and activists—as foreign agents. In this way,
Mr Putin’s regime depends on antiWestern ideology for its poli
tics just as it depends on oil and gas for its prosperity.
Dictators insist that how they treat their subjects is a ques
tion of sovereignty. In fact, repression is everyone’s business.
One reason is that human rights are universal. The other is that
violence at home spreads beyond a country’s frontiers.
Both Russia and Belarus, where the dictator Alexander Lu
kashenko is propped up by the Kremlin, have murdered dissi
dents abroad. Russia shot down a passenger plane and Belarus
hijacked one to arrest a local dissident. Poland and Lithuania
have sheltered the Belarusian opposition in selfexile. Backed by
the Kremlin, Mr Lukashenko is taking revenge by flying in refu
gees from the Middle East and shunting them to its borders to
engineer a humanitarian crisis (see Europe section).
On a greater scale, Mr Putin meddles in Western elections,
peddles antivaccine propaganda and fights proxy wars with
America in Africa and the Middle East. He is using the promise
of extra supplies of gas to weaken ties between the European Un
ion and countries like Ukraine and Moldova. He has once again
massed troops on the Ukrainian border and is flying nuclear
capable bombers to Belarus.
The good news is that just as most of the So
viet people did not believe in the advantages of
communism over capitalism, so most Russians
do not believe in the advantages of confronta
tion. For all Mr Putin’s propaganda, twothirds
have a positive view of the West. Nearly 80% say
Russia should see it as a partner and a friend.
This is most pronounced among the young,
who reject state violence and favour human rights instead.
Western politicians should take note of this divergence be
tween the Kremlin and the Russian people. One response is to
harmonise sanctions and focus them on the powerful Russians
who loot the state and abuse the people. That entails Western
countries standing up to the lobbying of their own service in
dustries, which get rich from helping Mr Putin’s cronies launder
their reputations, pursue their legal vendettas and shelter their
illicit wealth (see Books & arts section). Think ahead
They should also start laying the foundations for a postPutin
Russia. Nobody knows whether that will come in years or de
cades. But it is hard to see Mr Putin’s system surviving him.
The West should therefore invest in people who share its val
ues. It should speak out against humanrights abuses inside
Russia. The flood of Russian students, journalists and intellec
tuals seeking a better life will increase. Western governments
should accommodate them. Latvia and Lithuania are hosting in
dependent media outlets and dissidents. Russian students
should be welcomed to Western universities. By doing so the
West would not just be helping thevictims of Mr Putin’s repres
sion, it would also be helping itself.nIt will lead to more confrontation with the WestPutin’s new era of repression