-Analysis-
TBILISI — For years now, Russia’s war party, which is made up of a diverse so-called “Z-Community” – a network of hundreds of Telegram channels curated by those who support Russia’s war on Ukraine and brought together by the nationalist “Z” symbol – has been trying to understand exactly how it’s possible that Russia is gaining nothing from this war.
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Yes, the Armed Forces of Ukraine – and alongside them, the entire NATO bloc with its “hordes of mercenaries” – are serious opponents. But it just cannot be that a united Russia is unable to handle them. In the third year of the invasion, the war party seems to have finally found its answer: a society that just wants to live and to work.
Since the first days of the war, the Z-channels have been complaining that Russian society has not been sufficiently involved in supporting the army fighting in Ukraine. While Russian President Vladimir Putin talks about how the country has “united in the name of victory,” they write about how the country couldn’t, in fact, care less about the war.
And that goes for the soldiers who are fighting, too. This theme itself is not new in the Z-space, but over the past two weeks these kinds of topics – about bad people, about spoiled and indifferent people – have begun to appear more and more.
Veiled dissatisfaction
Z-authors are very dissatisfied with Russian society. No, of course, they don’t say it directly. They write about the “faggots” who dare to go on vacation in wartime. About the “fat cats” whose “fat fucking lives” are made possible by the “bent backs of serfs.”
They accuse “the middle class, the managers and the small entrepreneurs, the Social media marketing specialists, the promoters, the IT people” of dismissing the “news from the Special Military Operation zone” because “it spoils the appetite and the mood.”
For the last two years I’ve been writing about this regularly, speaking in interviews or giving presentations: To understand how unpopular the war is and how marginal its party is, you shouldn’t be reading Holod or The New York Times, but rather the Z-channels, which write about this with enviable regularity.
Not explicitly but, for example, describing the unsolvable problems in the army and an infinite shortage of a wide variety of things. The simple logic of the Z-authors is this: Because volunteers provide the Russian army with most necessities, from uniforms and body armor to transport and drones, and the troops did not have enough and do not have enough, it follows that a very small percentage of our fellow citizens are supporting the volunteer activities.
Society won’t mobilize
The Z-authors themselves have long understood this. The new surge of writing about the “bad people” says, it seems to me, something else: that the Russians fighting and helping on the front are beginning to understand that nothing will change.
For almost three years of full-scale war, Russian society has not mobilized and, most likely, will not mobilize. Because it categorically does not want war. And this is triggering both understandable fury and understandable anxiety for the future in the pro-war channels.
It’s one thing to be a veteran of the “people’s war,” and quite another to have someone address you with a phrase so familiar to many: “We did not send you there.”
The main enemy of the Russian army is the “fat cat” citizen of Russia and the Russian official.
Vladislav Shurygin, deputy editor-in-chief of the extreme-right newspaper Zavtra and military expert, published the sharpest text of this kind last week on his “Ramzai” channel:
“I wanted to say a few words about our main enemy. Not about the U.S., not about NATO, and not even about the Ukrainian Armed Forces… I’m talking about another enemy. About a stupid, deaf and completely indifferent official, who doesn’t give a damn about anything except his own pockets, his own armchair and the will of his superior officer, on whom his well-being depends…. About a fat cat who serves the state with all his fervour, which then provides him with a comfortable life and the opportunity to take his family pride to Turkey and discuss how it was so much better in Italy while under the palm trees of Marmaris, but then there is the Special Military Operation…. The main topic [of their conversations] is this: when will there be reconciliation there?”
Shurygin is one of the authors who is most loyal to the authorities, who can in no way be classified as one of the scornfully named “all-is-lost” types (such as Igor Strelkov and his comrades like Colonel Viktor Alksnis).
If we were to try to somehow classify the “Ramzai” channel, then it is significantly closer to the position of the “guardian” (defenders of the status quo) – that is, closer to official propaganda, where it is said that everything is going according to plan. And it is Shurygin who writes that the main enemy of the Russian army is the “fat cat” citizen of Russia and the Russian official.
Divided front
Shurygin’s post immediately spread throughout the Z-space. It was reposted by dozens of channels. But the most curious thing is that Andrei Gurulev, a retired army general who is now a member of Russia’s lower chamber of parliament, wrote about the post: “Read this, I agree with many things, it is written harshly, but honestly.”
And Shurygin’s text contains a fairly detailed list of all the main themes of the Z-space: excessive losses, commanders who drive soldiers like cattle into the storm for the sake of awards and promotions. A total lack of everything and most importantly, constant lies.
The author lists all this in his already notorious text: “The war has been going on for two and a half years, but on the front, lies and ostentation are still blooming like opium poppies in a Tajik garden.”
Their dream is to end the peaceful and comfortable life of their fellow citizens.
Ekaterina Larina, a Moscow-based journalist who runs her own small Z-channel called “Pozyvnoi ‘Avgusta’” responded to Shurygin’s post, which his channel reposted:
“More than two years after the start of the war, we are not talking about any consolidation of society whatsoever. On the TV and radio, entertainment programs still occupy the lion’s share of the airwaves. And do you know why? It’s because ‘people are eating it up,’ it’s because of the ratings, which means this on-air filth brings in cash. Because someone in charge of domestic politics doesn’t give a shit about what’s happening, like those people [who are lapping it all up].”
This is the main idea that unites all the Z-authors mentioned in the column: Their dream is to end the peaceful and comfortable life of their fellow citizens. They want the whole country to live in war, weaving camouflage nets, standing in line at military enlistment offices. Not having fun, not resting, not working in peaceful jobs – but rather, sacrificing everything for the sake of “victory.”
“The Moscow faggots went to seaside resorts, and at the gas stations they could neither piss nor refuel. And they say the foot soldiers are understaffed. Here, you can find a battalion at every gas station… Those who travel along the M4 [highway, which links Moscow to the Black Sea coast] to the resorts today are all fags. It doesn’t matter where they come from,” writes the author of the “No Pasaran” channel, a volunteer who delivers active protection systems (APS) for tanks to the front.
A new narrative
While the careful author of “Ramzai” is still writing about some abstract official in his emotional text, the author of the “Okopnaya Gryaz” channel blames the country’s leadership for the current state of affairs (although he also does not name names):
“We have made a bet to fight with minimal risks to society’s stability. True, for this to work it will be necessary to place the entire burden of war on an albeit small but absolutely enslaved number of its citizens. It’s okay, the soldiers will endure. The soldiers are enduring. Every month there are fewer soldiers left.”
Z-artist DaZbastaDraw, commenting on the first court hearing in the case of “the desecration of a spontaneous memorial to veterans of the Special Military Operation on Varvarka,” writes: “Maybe this is news to some, but it’s been a long time since the enemy was found on the other side of the front line. He’s already here. Curling his lips, throwing contemptuous glances at the letter Z on a soldier’s stripes and cars. Demonstratively, he turns away when he sees military uniforms in public places. He shows off his ‘anti-war’ position.”
A new war narrative is being formed, in which the enemies are Russian citizens who want a peaceful life.
“The majority don’t give a fuck, they didn’t give a fuck before, and they don’t now,” writes the author of the “RosgVardeyets” channel. “For them, the war is so far away, very far. They aren’t worried about tomorrow, it will come to their little world anyway. They say so guiltily, they say, I’m not very interested in the topic of war. And in general, everyone is riding high.”
In January, I wrote a column for Holod about how Russian culture is making every conceivable effort not to get dirty in this war, and the National Guard of Russia Lieutenant Colonel Prilepin is extremely saddened by this state of affairs.
A year and a half has passed, and this week Prilepin also whined, and then whined again about the same topic: the lack of interest fellow citizens and heads of theaters and television channels have for Z-culture. They don’t want to read Prokhanov and listen to Chicherina. Prilepin ended his post with the words: “There should be some conclusion here. (There will be no conclusions).”
It seems to me that we can, actually, draw a conclusion. A new war narrative is being formed, in which the opponents and enemies are Russian citizens who want a peaceful life. A pretty important conclusion.
