The Enemy Within

By Barry Turner Columnist

A common observation from Russia watchers is that “Russia could not afford to enter this war – it was bound to lose it”. If ‘Russia’ means the Russian people then indeed they “could not afford the war” is true.

Russia could not afford the cataclysmic corruption brought about by Boris Yeltsin and the oligarchs and the worst kind of robber-baron capitalism ever witnessed on the planet is a more realistic interpretation of events. The war in Ukraine is an inevitable consequence of that.

When the war is over and the culprits are sought it should not be focussed solely on the incompetent, murderous and corrupt generals in the Russian Army. A good deal of attention needs to be placed on many of those who until recently enjoyed their vastly opulent lifestyles in their London, Paris and New York mansions and their ocean going yachts. We also need to shine a light on those in the West who facilitated the gigantic theft and corruption in the former states of the Soviet Union. President Putin would never have been there without them.

It was plainly obvious many years before the emergence of Putin as Czar Vladimir Vladimirovich that oligarchy and kleptocracy would lead to imperialism and war, it always does. It is not possible to have peace and stability in a society where vastly wealthy criminals are in charge. The irony is that it is the oligarchy and the kleptocracy that is also going to be the reason the Czar loses his hideous empire before it reformulates.

The Russian Army is infected with the terminal disease of corruption just like every other institution in Russia. Russian soldiers are deprived of decent equipment and even palatable rations because their own officers have stolen it and sold it for their own profit. The culprits, even when they are caught get trivial sentences and are staggeringly returned to their rank when released because of poisonous cronyism.

The corruption that has fuelled the wealthy elites in Russia for the last three decades is now set to be its nemesis. Russia is running out of equipment and weapons. Many of their much vaunted armoured vehicles have been abandoned and more have broken down because the people in charge of keeping it serviceable have stolen and embezzled the resources needed to keep it functioning and effective.

So now they rely on terrorist weapons from Iran. They too will soon run out when the Mullahs are deposed by their own people. The Emperor Xi of China will not supply the Czar with weapons in spite of the supposed fraternal friendship between the two countries. He is quite happy to see Russia fail because when it does he will fill the vacuum.

When the Nazis invaded Russia in 1941, the heroic Russian people and the Red Army moved behind the Ural Mountains and rebuilt their industry and military before using it to destroy Nazism. That cannot happen this time. Russia cannot rebuild its weapons, not because the Ukraine has destroyed its facilities but because Russian oligarchs have. Rebuilding industry and the army in deepest Siberia is not an option this time. The oligarchs, kleptocrats, thieves and embezzlers will be there too. Old Russian proverbs warn of enemies at the gate. Wake up Russia, they are already in the house.

When Russians talk of being surrounded by enemies, they make the mistake of referring to history to demonstrate it. It is the geography that they have got wrong, not the history. It is true that Russia has many enemies but they are not in the West or in Ukraine. They are right there in Russia, living in their palaces and country estates or sailing their super yachts in the few places they can still go. For more than thirty years Russian people have been paying the price of the unacceptable face of capitalism. Young Russian soldiers are now paying with their lives too.

Czar Vladimir Vladimirovich is fond of reading the semi-mythical Russian histories of Imperial Russia’s glory days. He needs to look more closely at Russian history, the reality is much more interesting than the fantasy. The previous Czar Nicholas II had a great army, many palaces and an all pervading secret police to protect him. He too committed Russia to a war that it could not afford. All his imperious power could not save him when the Russian people finally got sick of it.

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Barry Turner is a Senior Lecturer in War Reporting and Human Rights and a member of the Royal United Services Institute.