how nationalism and machine politics mix in russiaist sentiment in Russia; instead, what took place was a powerful
‘rally- around- the- leader’ effect that newly connected Putin with
Russians who had long held nationalist views of many kinds.
Putin thus capped his Crimean move with a dramatic speech
in which he cast himself as a defender of the Russian nation.
Many nationalists who had previously opposed him now sup-
ported him. A classic example was writer Eduard Limonov, leader
of the radical (unregistered) National Bolshevik Party that had
been a mainstay of opposition protests throughout the Putin era.
Limonov declared his support for Crimea’s joining Russia and
toned down his criticism of the regime more generally. For the first
time in years, the Moscow City authorities allowed him to hold
his ‘31st day of the month’ rally in the centre of Moscow legally,
the 31st symbolically also referring to the clause in the Russian
constitution guaranteeing freedom of assembly, which Limonov
had previously argued had been denied. A multi- barrelled media
campaign supported the Kremlin cause, characterising the move
as Russia’s generous welcoming back of compatriots who had
freely voted to leave Ukraine for Russia after a ‘fascist junta’ bent
on anti- Russian genocide had taken power in Kyiv. By almost all
accounts, support for Putin’s Crimean gambit was not only broad
but deep, even to the point of rupturing close friendships for a
few who openly expressed scepticism or disapproval (author’s
personal observations).
By September 2014, an astonishing 87 per cent of the likely
voting public declared their readiness to vote again for Putin were
elections to be held at that time – even according to one of Russia’s
most reputable polling firms, the Levada Centre (Podosenov and
Rozanov 2014). To many, Putin now appeared virtually invin-
cible, supported not only by an impressive repressive apparatus
and tight media control but also by a genuine majority outpour-
ing of intense public support now seeing him as a man for the
ages. He was personally anchoring what came to be called ‘the
Crimean consensus’ (Ivanov et al. 2014). In the short term, at
least, Russia’s regime had become very stable, founded on the
broad public support that patronal presidents need to survive
moments of weakness and possible nearing succession.