This Is Fine

The Kremlin seems more fixated on waging war on reality, than on Ukraine

This will only be a short review, focusing for ease on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s meeting with his Kazakhstani counterpart Kassym-Jomart Tokayev at the Russia-Kazakhstan Interregional Cooperation Forum in Omsk.

The forum was primarily set to discuss Russia-Kazakhstani economic cooperation, though Tokayev caused controversy when he turned to the war on Ukraine.

This seemed a bizarre offtopik, given the focus on economic issues.

Tokayev told the forum that he had received ‘numerous messages’ from Europe and the United States ‘regarding the current state of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia’.

Screenshot from state television

What is more, he added that he had already informed Putin about these messages. This is really interesting, as it would cut through the notion, accepted among many observers, that Putin is ignorant, intentionally or through silence, of the course of the war.

Tokayev also insisted, before Putin’s face, that the war on Ukraine is ‘an interstate conflict’, not a civil war. This goes against the Kremlin’s old line (increasingly worn) that the war is a result of internal tensions inside Ukraine: in fact, Tokayev noted ‘that the true nature of this conflict remains unclear to many, ourselves included’.

He called on all parties to return to the ‘Istanbul Formula 2.0’, which would freeze the fighting and provide ‘security guarantees from the major powers, including Russia’.

Putin’s body language was not positive, but he replied briefly that he would brief Tokayev in detail.

It is currently hard what to make of this. Certainly it suggests that Putin possibly no longer dominates and terrifies neighbouring leaders (though Tokayev still spoke of Russia as ‘a great power’) as he reportedly used to, having reportedly threatened Tajikistan President Emomali Rahmon and former Ukrainian Viktor Yanukovych with brutal personal violence if they went against his wishes.

His message seems hardly coordinated with the Kremlin, or if so then its intent is complex. State television only reported the economic aspects of the forum, omitting the comments on Ukraine. Official Telegram channels, such as the Russian Defence Ministry, likewise ignored Ukraine. And yet the Kremlin website posted Tokayev’s speech in full.

Some extreme Z Telegram channels dismissed Tokayev’s call to freeze the conflict, one writing that his suggestions should be thrown in the ‘rubbish bin’.

But the overriding takeaway from nonofficial channels is that Tokayev’s comments brought out into the open what many now in Russia are thinking, that there is no clear point to the war, no strategy, no theory of victory, and no clear idea of where it will develop or end. Moreover, it is not clear where Russia is moving.

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In many ways, the realities on the ground in Ukraine seem irrelevant, perversely so given the brutality extended to the Ukrainians and the huge number of victims.

Part of me cannot help thinking that this could even be the reason the Kremlin posted the full text of what Tokayev said, to open up all the questions and underline their meaningless. There seems a vindictive act of violence from Russia against European civilisation: here I mean the traditions of philosophy and rational humanism which have been central to much European thought and culture which many Russian figures have rejected. There is a specific culture of perception and social relations that has been built up in Europe which Moscow is intent on destroying. At the same time, Putin’s speech to the forum, his insistence on improving economic relations and focus on statistics, as if nothing was going on, further adds to the impression that the Kremlin is more intent on waging war on reality, demonstrating its ability to shape reality, than on its actual success in Ukraine. The callous disregard of the hell bent to actual Ukrainian lives is astounding.

Screenshot from state television showing trade relations and economic transit routes. This is fine

But in many ways comes across as deliberate. More of that in our next edition.