Προσθήκη στα αγαπημένα
How did Putin co-opt Russia’s political and economic elites, ensuring no more than fitful resistance to the regime’s war on Ukraine?
When Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the West slapped crushing sanctions on Russia. Many expected the country’s elite—prominent liberals and global businessmen—to defend their assets and cosmopolitan lifestyles by forcing Putin to stop the war. Instead, liberal-minded officials rewired the economy for war; corporations obeyed new rules; and only a handful resigned or spoke out. Why?
Built on dozens of candid conversations with top Russian officials and businessmen since the mid-2010s, this book dissects their moral reasoning, and how their boundaries of ethical acceptability expanded over time, in line with the expectations of their superiors. Though the Russian upper class retained formal attributes of power, in reality it lost its agency, essentially becoming a mere instrument of governance.
Alexandra Prokopenko illuminates the war’s pivotal moments: Western sanctions, mass mobilisation, the annexation of four Ukrainian regions, and Yevgeny Prigozhin’s aborted mutiny in 2023. She traces meticulously how competing factions, from technocrats to hawks, rationalised each shock and recalibrated their loyalties. And she sets this process within an inside history of Putin’s regime, analysing the transformation of mindset at individual and sociological levels. These people will continue influencing global politics; we must understand how they think and act.
Preface
Chapter One: The Age of Illusions
Chapter Two: Verticals and Loyalty
Chapter Three: Artificial Coma
Chapter Four: Adaptation
Chapter Five: The Moral Career of the Elite
Chapter Six: All Against All
Chapter Seven: The War Within: A New Propertied class
Chapter Eight: The war within: Home front
Chapter Nine: Wild Putinism
Bibliography
Index
Περιγραφή
How did Putin co-opt Russia’s political and economic elites, ensuring no more than fitful resistance to the regime’s war on Ukraine?
When Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the West slapped crushing sanctions on Russia. Many expected the country’s elite—prominent liberals and global businessmen—to defend their assets and cosmopolitan lifestyles by forcing Putin to stop the war. Instead, liberal-minded officials rewired the economy for war; corporations obeyed new rules; and only a handful resigned or spoke out. Why?
Built on dozens of candid conversations with top Russian officials and businessmen since the mid-2010s, this book dissects their moral reasoning, and how their boundaries of ethical acceptability expanded over time, in line with the expectations of their superiors. Though the Russian upper class retained formal attributes of power, in reality it lost its agency, essentially becoming a mere instrument of governance.
Alexandra Prokopenko illuminates the war’s pivotal moments: Western sanctions, mass mobilisation, the annexation of four Ukrainian regions, and Yevgeny Prigozhin’s aborted mutiny in 2023. She traces meticulously how competing factions, from technocrats to hawks, rationalised each shock and recalibrated their loyalties. And she sets this process within an inside history of Putin’s regime, analysing the transformation of mindset at individual and sociological levels. These people will continue influencing global politics; we must understand how they think and act.
