In Wake Of Putin’s War In Ukraine, Russians Must Demolish The FSB – OpEd
By Paul Goble
Polls showing that 70 percent of Russians support the military operation in Ukraine are “creating a distorted picture” of their reaction to that event,” Aleksandr Morozov says. In fact, contacts with people on a daily basis show that few of these are enthusiastic about the war, most are in shock, and many want to know who decided to start it.
The political philosopher says that he has the impression that ever more Russians are convinced that the only beneficiaries of this war are “those who are professionally connected with security, that is, with the FSB and its voluntary assistants.” Everyone else is taking serious losses (polit.ru/article/2022/03/25/todo/).
“No one has any illusions,” Morozov continues, and many suspect that the army was pushed into this conflict and that is leaders do not believe the propaganda about fighting “Nazis” or “defending” Russia against NATO. Moreover, they think, many taking part in the operation are certain that the war will have exactly the opposite result to the one the Kremlin projects.
Russians and the world watched the meeting of the Russian Security Council where the decision to begin the war was supposedly made. But it was obvious that “the real decision was taken not there and not by these people.” But as the war has gone on, Russians increasingly are not asking who really is behind it but, the eternal Russian question, what they must do now.
It seems clear now, Morozov continues, that “Russia will be able to get out of this extreme situation either by a nuclear war or when part of its ruling class will take on itself the heavy responsibility for the future of the country and begin to demolish all that led to the catastrophe of February 2022.”
“The shape of the future will depend on the bravery of the people,” he argues.
Today, Russia needs a peace treaty; but it also needs to put an end to the situation in which the Russian army has been reduced to being “an instrument of the FSB. Looking further into the future, one must say now that the FSB in that form which it has existed at the end of the 30 years of the post-Soviet transition … must no longer be allowed to exist.”
According to Morozov, “the special services must be depoliticized, and the society and the country as a whole must be de-FSB-ed.” That will mean that the rights Russians are supposed to have under the constitution will be observed, and the army will be “retained for the defense of the state in its borders and not for reckless political adventures abroad.”
The state sector of the economy must be significantly reduced, and the state must be transformed so that it will not be used primarily to extract wealth for the few and prevent any economic and civil will, Morozov concludes. But first it is necessary to end Putin’s war and then do away with the FSB in its current form.
Paul Goble is a longtime specialist on ethnic and religious questions in Eurasia. Most recently, he was director of research and publications at the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy. Earlier, he served as vice dean for the social sciences and humanities at Audentes University in Tallinn and a senior research associate at the EuroCollege of the University of Tartu in Estonia. He has served in various capacities in the U.S. State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and the International Broadcasting Bureau as well as at the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Mr. Goble maintains the Window on Eurasia blog and can be contacted directly at paul.goble@gmail.com .
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