Lilia Shevtsova: Russia always prepares for war

Russia has always been living as a militarist and expansionist state.

Lilia Shevtsova, a famous Russian politologist and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said it in an interview with Apostrophe.

“Expansionism cannot exist without militarism. Russia lived in cycles from war to peace. Peace always was, to a certain degree, preparation for a new war. Russia lived like the Aztec or Sparta in their times. These is no such a civilisation in today's world. Russia has come down to us as a unique civilisation,” Shevtsova said.

According to her, Russia took a kind of a pause after the collapse of the USSR, trying to “get rid of the past and break the militarism cycle”.

“But it cannot do it. Putin is returning to militarism again, to the old convenient and familiar model of living, in which Russia has been existing for centuries. The problem is that beginning a new cycle of militarisation, Russia cannot get militarised using old instruments because it has no money. The budget is limited. If the budget is $430 billion, a part of which must be spent on pensions and Putin's social programmes, we cannot speak about the old militarism,” she stressed.

Shevtsova notes that militarism requires the consolidation of society on the basis of the common idea: the enemy and the besieged fortress. But Russia has only few people ready to support militarisation.

“We are in a very difficult pause. On the one hand, the system hasn't broken the militarism cycle and the authorities have returned to militaristic patriotism, but on the other hand, this is probably the last breathe, the agony of militarism. The country cannot be more militarised. It cannot constantly fight against the whole world,” Shevtsova noted.

According to her, the Kremlin is able to present fake militarism and simulate a war, “the undeclared war”. “Russia has this war with Ukraine. The Kremlin tries to declare this fake war on the whole West,” she said.

Shevtsova stresses that militarisation will fail because the Russian elite and Russian society do not accept it.