Many Russians Convince Themselves They Live in a Normal Country, Says Former BBC Top Correspondent Bridget Kendall

Interviewer: The trajectory of development across the former Soviet-led Eastern bloc has varied significantly. What, in your view, accounts for these differences?

Bridget Kendall: Nations have different histories. Look at Georgia. I first visited Georgia in 1977 when it was a very free-thinking society in Soviet terms. It was much easier to get beneath the skin of Soviet Georgia than Lithuania at that time. People used to talk about ‘the Soviet Union’ as being on the other side of the Caucasus Mountains. Georgians felt they were different, quite independent. And after Gorbachev opened things up, they were quite swift to assert their independence. Not so quickly as the Baltic states, of course, but Georgia was a country which felt different. Yet look at their fortunes now.

I haven't been to Tbilisi for a long time, but friends of mine who were there recently talked of conversations they had with local Georgians who expressed the view, ahead of their recent elections, that perhaps they should vote for the incumbent government, even though it seemed to be close to Moscow, because that might keep them safer from a Russian invasion or some sort of malign influence. I think Georgians still feel very independent and are very clear in their own identity, and they do not want to be under imperial rule from Moscow. But their situation is different: they are not in NATO and you need to have a security guarantee if you're a small nation with a big neighbour. Georgia does not have that, and they are further away from Europe too. So, I think they feel quite insecure.

Interviewer: The global focus topic for the last three years has been aggressive Russia. What does Putin want and make of current developments? To what extent is your Cold War experience and expertise instrumental or useful in explaining this?

Bridget Kendall: A lot of what Putin says and what those around him say echoes back to ‘old thinking’ and rhetoric from the Soviet era. I don't know if it has been an evolution in the way he thinks. With Putin it is very hard to know how far he was pretending from the very beginning. For example, very early on, right after the Kosovo war, he reached out to NATO, apparently to try to mend the breach over Kosovo and have better relations. Nowadays he sees NATO as the enemy. So how much has his view of NATO and the West changed over this time, or did he always see it as a potential adversary?

As for what he thinks now and what he wants, it's not difficult to find out if you spend any time reading his speeches or listening to him or finding the bits on YouTube. He talks a lot and has presented long articles. It's all about making Russia great again. But he can also be unpredictable.

I used to think that he must have some ‘red lines’ of things he would try to avoid, for example, allowing Russian blood to be spilled. Because at the very beginning of his conflict with Ukraine, in 2014, he seemed to draw back from too much involvement in fighting in Eastern Ukraine, switching instead to the conflict in Syria, where he could bomb from the air without risking Russian lives, leaving all the fighting to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and the Syrians themselves. This was to have a ‘blood free’ war from Russia's point of view. So I had thought he would be very reluctant to get involved in a foreign ‘adventure’ which would lead to Russian soldiers being exposed to a ground war.

Similarly with the Russian intervention into Georgia in 2008. It didn't last very long. The Russians ended up with two enclaves of Georgian territory (South Ossetia and Abkhazia) but did not push further, towards Tbilisi, apparently to avoid a messier longer war. So that's what I thought his red line was: avoid too much Russian bloodshed which would risk being unpopular at home because of the casualties.

But 2008 was a long time ago. He's been sitting in the Kremlin, he's increasingly isolated. He was clearly very isolated during COVID. He's delved more into history. He's got a small coterie of people around him. I don't think he uses the Internet. I think he thinks it's too dangerous to use the Internet. And so I think he has gone down this pathway of increased paranoia, increased anti-Westernism, increased obsession with Russia's standing in the world.

He has always measured Russia against the United States, which is very Cold War thinking. We're living in a multipolar world now, with many centres or power, but it's always the United States that he's concerned with. The two big nuclear powers. And I'm sure he's delighted with the result of this election in the US – which has brought Donald Trump back to power – because I think he's convinced that the West is in terminal economic, political and moral decline. And anything Russia can do to hasten that is good for Russia, because if the West is weakened, it makes it easier for Russia to be stronger and bigger.

If Russia is seen as a threat and people are afraid of it in the West, that is all to the good, in his view. His priority is to be seen strong, not to be seen as likable. And it turns out that this is so important to him that he is willing to sacrifice his people in large numbers, and shed Russian blood, and even have his country invaded and attacked by Ukraine as with the Kursk incursion.

I sometimes wonder if all this would have happened without COVID when he had this period of isolation. But probably it would, because already all the signs of increased paranoia were there, especially with the attacks on Georgia and Ukraine in 2008 and 2014.

Sometimes I look at world events and think unfortunately what we see unfolding will reconfirm Putin’s view that he was right: that the European Union is increasingly weak and fractured – look at Brexit; that the Americans are prepared to vote for a president like Trump. And he just sees this as confirmation that he is right, the West is in decline and he's doing the right thing for Russia.

Interviewer: How come Putin cares so little about the Russian economy?

Bridget Kendall: I think he's so obsessed with the external profile of Russia that he doesn't really want to delve into the economy. I mean, if he cared about the economy, he would hardly have done what he's done in Ukraine.

I remember in February 2014 when the Maidan protest in Kyiv was in full flow, which was during the Sochi Winter Olympics, hosted by Russia. Putin was furious because events in Kyiv were taking his Olympic ‘show’ off the front of the news. And I remember at that time that his economic ministers had arranged a summit in Krasnoyarsk with Western investors to talk to them about getting more involved in investing in the Russian economy. Russia needed outside business support to help it develop more quickly and not just be a raw materials economy.

Once the Sochi Olympics had finished, Putin summoned a meeting of his defence and security chiefs and apparently ordered a plan to counter the Maidan protests by causing unrest in Ukraine’s Russian speaking cities. When that failed to work and after the President of Ukraine, Yanukovich, fled to Russia, he went further and had his ‘green men’ move in and seize Crimea. From his point of view the annexation of Crimea was a resounding success even though it led to Western sanctions which have continued to tighten with time. But his economic ministers in Krasnoyarsk were left looking completely stupid. Any thought of encouraging Western investment in Russia was overnight impossible and they had to abandon the conference.

That tells you how little interest Putin has in Russia's economy. It is true, in the wake of sanctions, he started to look for opportunities for so-called ‘import substitution’, turning the argument about Western sanctions on its head. Telling Russians ‘we'll make our own Russian cheese; we will develop the Russian economy, we will change our trades so we're no longer trading with the West but trade with other parts of the world.’

But one cannot get away from the fact that Russia’s gas sales to Europe were important to the Russian economy. And Putin was prepared to sacrifice that. So, he's been prepared to sacrifice a lot of things for the sake of his big idea of making Russia great again in a geopolitical way.

And what's been evident in the years since he invaded Ukraine is that behind this striding out onto the world stage, if you like, Russia is quite a fragile structure. So there was the appalling mess the Russians made at the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine, and then the way the Ukrainian army later that summer pushed the Russians back in the north and east.

The Russians were disorganised, totally disorganised, to begin with. Then there was the whole Prigozhin uprising. Plus cases of terrorism in Moscow, like in Crocus City music hall [on March 22, 2024, 145 people were killed and another 551 were injured after four masked islamic terrorists committed a mass shooting at the concert venue, which caught fire as a result - editor].

Then there was Ukraine’s ability to cross Russia’s border and stage an incursion into Russian territory, occupying parts of Kursk province. How on earth did that happen? All these things tell you that this country is far from being great, it is quite dysfunctional. And anyone who, like me, spent time in the Soviet Union, is quite familiar with this paradigm: that you have a sort of superpower superstructure with nuclear weapons and apparent control over society, but underneath it's another story.

And this is due to all sorts of hidden currents which are hard to second guess. I mean, who would have thought that Putin’s war ally Prigozhin would march on Moscow? Nobody would have predicted that or that the KGB in Krasnodar would sit on their hands and let Prigozhin and his men advance on Moscow and not try to stop them.

Interviewer: Are the putinist means and methods of social control different now from the Cold War era?

Bridget Kendall: Some of the methods are from the old copybook. One thing that's different is that it's not a communist state, everyone isn't employed by the State. In the Soviet Union, if you raised your head in dissent, you could lose your job, and if you lost your job, you were a social parasite and then you risked being sent to prison. Now that's not the case. Instead, you get arrested and sent to prison through being accused of treason or disrespecting the stage or criticising the President or whatever. But it's on national security grounds.

I don't know the number of people in prison, how it compares with the Soviet era. I suspect it's less because what he's done is to use those deep triggers, which are there probably not only among older people, but even their children, who are remembering what it used to be like in the Soviet era. He only has to make people fear and they will not risk speaking out against what's happening, they'll retreat into their families and their kitchens and stay silent and keep their heads down to stay out of trouble.

The war protests stopped quite soon, didn't they? They were there at the very beginning after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. And then harsh prison sentences were handed out to protestors, and after that the protests stopped: people didn't dare go out on the streets anymore. So, the fear factor has been quite effective.

Putin’s regime’s propaganda is more stylized than in Brezhnev's era. It's very harsh, very dominant, very aggressive. More like late Stalinism than Brezhnev. Not that I was there in Stalin’s era, but I read a lot of literature from that period so I am familiar with it.

I think a lot of Russians may kid themselves that Russia today is a normal country – so long as they keep out of the way of anything that might bring them into confrontation with the authorities. Except for the matter of mobilisation. And that of course, is why there was a popular push back against an attempt at overt mobilisation. It went down badly with the population because suddenly the war touched everyone’s lives, threatening to put at risk their husbands, brothers and sons.

Living in a market economy where you can have a job, you can have some autonomy in your life, makes today’s Russia unlike in the Soviet Union. But it also means that it's easier to have your head in the sand than it used to be. The propaganda is more effective, much more effective because he has weaponized memories of the Second World War as opposed to the hollow ideology of the late Soviet period, which everyone thought was boring and ridiculous and didn't work. I find it quite troubling that the propaganda could be so effective. But they've learnt how to do it and apparently it is quite effective.

Interviewer: How does the present Russian media compare to the Soviet media?

Bridget Kendall: In Russia today, any media with impact is now largely linked to the regime. Roll back 10-15 years, to the beginning of Putin's Russia, and you could still find independent media, particularly in the regions or small local papers or local TV. They could speak out quite frankly, about a lot of things. Not anymore. Independent media cannot find the investors, they get threatened, they lose their buildings. Not to mention the risk of being accused of treason. It's a different story now than from when Putin first emerged. Now it's more Soviet-like. Although I haven't witnessed it first hand as I have not been there since 2016.

Interviewer: What was your last visit to Russia related to? What did you witness there?

Bridget Kendall: I went to south-west Russia to the city of Oryol. I wanted to see the mood in the provinces in comparison to the capital and the voices you hear on the international stage. What I found was the same poverty that had always been there in the Russian provinces. Nothing had changed: huge unemployment, enormous amount of anxiety, and a sense that this was a place that had been left behind since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Nobody would go on the record or would criticise the authorities, but as I was walking down the street, coming away from a formal interview, a man followed me and said, ‘look, we couldn't talk in there, but come to my apartment. I’ll get together with some friends and we can talk more frankly’. And then they told me a completely different story. And it was like how it used to be in the Soviet Union: the private conversations you would have of disaffection and anxiety, and the despair of what they were living through. And that was my impression in 2016, well before the invasion of Ukraine. So God knows what those people are experiencing now.

Interviewer: Should all Russians be held responsible for what Putin does?

Bridget Kendall: Maybe we need to look at our own houses. I mean, if you look at Britain recently, the various votes which have been very controversial, like the Brexit vote which passed narrowly in 2016; or the tenure of Boris Johnson as Prime Minister and subsequently the brief and calamitous premiership of Liz Truss.

And look now at what’s happened in the United States. Not so very long ago, there was a black president and now there is Trump for the second time, a convicted felon. Do all Americans take responsibility for the re-election? Or only those who voted for him? Similarly do all British people take responsibility for Britain leaving the EU, or only those who voted for it in the referendum?

The difficulty in Russia is that elections are a sham so we can't pose the question in the same way in Russia because probably the people who don't like it simply don't go to vote- if they can get away with not voting. But even that is a risk. The authorities can get at you through your place of work or use other ways to, you know, threaten and take away whatever it might be, your pension or whatever.

So, if you're a pensioner, you know you have to be careful, so you may go vote for President Putin. Does that mean you take responsibility for what he does? I mean, when he invaded Ukraine, he didn't, it seems, even consult his own cabinet, even if they've fallen into line now.

That's one way of answering that question.

The other thing is that in any of these countries, but perhaps particularly Russia's neighbours, geography is not going to change. Estonia is always going to be next to Russia. But Putin won't be there forever. And we have evidence from recent history that it's a place that can change quite quickly. We were talking about lack of resilience in Russia, the fragility underneath the apparent strength. And so, if we think about what steps to take for the long term and what would help to build relations with the right people in Russia - surely that is sensible.

So saying that all Russians have to bear responsibility for the actions of their government and decisions which their president took without really consulting anybody much - you could say that it is not that simple. It’s a complex problem and we need to start looking for other solutions.

I was in Russia in two very different periods, one in the 1970s, which at the time we thought things were getting better but in fact it was the height of the Cold War; and then again in the perestroika period when the country started changing almost overnight. And with the arrival of Gorbachev and the changes in policy he introduced, a different set of Russians appeared who wanted a different future for their country. As one Russian put it to me recently, ‘There is the Russian language of Putin but there's also the Russian language of opposition leaders like Navalny and Khodorkovsky.‘ So there is more than one sort of Russian. Do you want to lump them all together? Is that either fair or sensible?

Incidentally there are Russians here in Estonia who have contacts and inside knowledge which could be useful to all of us. All these people have relatives all over Russia. They can informally help build a picture of what's going on.

Interviewer: Do you still enjoy Russian culture?

Bridget Kendall: Having spent most of my life studying Russian culture and literature, I know it very well, so that makes it harder to put it to one side. This is the debate which goes beyond politics in the world today. Throughout history there have been very great artists who were terrible wife beaters and child abusers, so do we lock away their art because of that? Or should the art stand on its own merits? Should we disassociate an artist’s lifestyle from the value we place on their art? It's a philosophical question. Similarly, do you deny culture because you don't approve of what the current government is doing?

But I think there is another answer to this question, which the Ukrainians have thrown up, and this is how to deal with a former Imperial power. Coming from Britain, I'm very attuned to this question. It is very easy to believe your own culture matters more when it has imperial power behind it. Britain was guilty of this too. Whereas in fact other cultures which had less political power had less opportunity to shine. I think it is right that there should be more room given to the history and culture of colonized nations. Their art is worth valuing too-so long as it is any good. So we should be open to different ways of looking at history.

Interviewer: How has the self-image or the identity of the UK changed after Brexit?

Bridget Kendall: I voted to stay. I was a Remainer. I still think we'd be better off in the EU and very much hope that the changes that are happening now might encourage Britain to build closer links with Europe again. I think the current government, the Prime Minister, was a Remainer too. But after the whole story of leaving there is a political consensus in Britain that we left the EU, and like it or not, you cannot turn back the clock. But maybe you can rebuild relations in different areas, so that we come closer to Europe again.

I don't think that's particularly controversial anymore. Russia’s war in Ukraine helped in that way. In a world with an aggressive Russia, Britain needs to be more secure and in line with security with Europe. As it does when it comes to other sorts of security threats like terrorism. So for example, the UK withdrawing from Europol was senseless. Of course, it makes sense to collaborate with European policing so that the UK is alert to security threats before they happen or has the ability to repatriate serious criminals by sending them back to their home countries in Europe, if they are convicted of a crime they committed in Britain.

So, I think the UK is on an arc and the relationship with Europe continues to evolve. It's largely to do with who's in power. We no longer have a government which is pro Brexit. We have a government dealing with the aftermath. But that doesn’t change the fact that Brexit happened, unfortunately.

The other thing is that I'm not sure whether British society has really been able to count the economic cost of Brexit, because it was overshadowed by the COVID pandemic. Covid led to a huge black hole in public finances, so it's impossible to tell which economic problems facing the country come from the pandemic and which were caused by Brexit. Though some experts have spoken up to argue that the economy suffered because of Brexit.

Interviewer: Is there anything, even one thing, that got better after Brexit for the UK?

Bridget Kendall: Well, it's been a rough time with COVID and a rather chaotic Prime Minister and then one which really damaged our financial standing very briefly, Liz Trust. I don't know what I can think of that's got better. You're asking the wrong person that question.

Interviewer: Wouldn't you agree that Putin's hybrid war against the UK has been counterproductive? He has turned the UK viciously against him.

Bridget Kendall: I think his officials have always felt that the UK media was prone to use stereotypes about Russia, easy stereotypes about Russia, Cold War stereotypes. But they’ve also given the UK good reason to be suspicious of Russia. The Russians using chemical weapons to try to assassinate Kremlin critics on British soil (Litvinenko in 2006 and Skripal in 2017) was obviously particularly aggressive, even though it was exposed - embarrassing both for the GRU and also for British intelligence for letting it happen. That only worsened Putin’s already bad reputation in the UK. Though Russia’s hybrid attacks are not against the UK only, they are targeted against Europe too.

Interviewer: What about the UK-s America orientation now, after Trump has started his presidency and there is no Boris Johnson welcoming him in London, what do you see happening there?

Bridget Kendall: There are some fringe politicians, like Nigel Farage of the UK Reform Party, who've been friends of Trump. As for the British Government, it has shown that it's going to be very pragmatic. For instance, Prime Minister Keir Starmer went and had dinner with Trump when he was a candidate, just to prepare, just in case.

My sense from conversations I've had here in Tallinn is that the Estonian government feels the same way. Trump as American President again is a fact we've got to deal with it. The United States remains an ally, so we need to work with them if possible. And we have to see to what extent the Trump administration really does match the pre-election rhetoric of Donald Trump.