Under Putin, a militarized new Russia rises to challenge U.S. and the West
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2024/putin-values-russian-society-conservatism/(this is a long, fairly comprehensive article)
A large star with a Z, which has come to represent the Russian military, is displayed near a memorial honoring the heroes of the Great Patriotic War, as World War II is known in Russia, in Moscow on March 25. (Nanna Heitmann/Magnum Photos for The Washington Post)
By Robyn Dixon
May 6, 2024 at 6:35 a.m.
MOSCOW As Vladimir Putin persists in his bloody campaign to conquer Ukraine, the Russian leader is directing an equally momentous transformation at home re-engineering his country into a regressive, militarized society that views the West as its mortal enemy.
Putins inauguration on Tuesday for a fifth term will not only mark his 25-year-long grip on power but also showcase Russias shift into what pro-Kremlin commentators call a revolutionary power, set on upending the global order, making its own rules, and demanding that totalitarian autocracy be respected as a legitimate alternative to democracy in a world redivided by big powers into spheres of influence.
Russia, Remastered examines how Vladimir Putin, stoking conflict with the West and risking a new world war, is harnessing his invasion of Ukraine to transform Russia and fulfill his revanchist vision of a restored superpower.
Russians live in a wholly new reality, Dmitri Trenin, a pro-Kremlin analyst, wrote in reply to questions about an essay in which he argued that Russias anti-Western shift was more radical and far-reaching than anything anticipated when Putin invaded Ukraine but also a relatively minor element of the wider transformation which is going on in Russias economy, polity, society, culture, values, and spiritual and intellectual life.
In Russia, Remastered, The Washington Post documents the historic scale of the changes Putin is carrying out and has accelerated with breathtaking speed during two years of brutal war even as tens of thousands of Russians have fled abroad. It is a crusade that gives Putin common cause with Chinas Xi Jinping as well as some supporters of former president Donald Trump. And it raises the prospect of an enduring civilizational conflict to subvert Western democracy and Putin has warned even threatens a new world war.
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ExciteBike66
(2,419 posts)That's all his army has gotten him in ukraine after all.
Some challenge. We're quaking.
intrepidity
(7,400 posts)sl8
(14,184 posts)I'm not, although I do for most of their articles. Also, I see that someone else posted that there was no paywall for that article.
intrepidity
(7,400 posts)sl8
(14,184 posts)Irish_Dem
(48,777 posts)And have both worked very hard to damage western democracies and have been
quite successful do this. They have divided the democracies internally.
Divide and conquer.
brush
(54,046 posts)So that factor is a wash. Russia is no match for NATO in all other areas.
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