Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Volodymyr Yermolenko has traveled through his battered country to bring his help to the population. A fighting thinker, he also reflects on the future of Europe, on Putinism – this gerontocracy which he calls the “new Brezhnevism” -, on future relations with this terrible Russian neighbor and on the many challenges that await his country after the war. Philosopher, Volodymyr Yermolenko is president of the Ukrainian Pen club, editor of the information site ukrainworld.org and associate professor at the Mohyla Academy in Kyiv.
L’Express: What could bring down Putin?
Volodymyr Yermolenko: Russia is not a nation state, it is an empire – that is, the legitimacy of power in Russia comes from above. And it is for this reason that one can speak of “Russian nationalism”, and not of “Russian nation”. Unlike Ukrainians, who have always been very critical of their rulers, Russian citizens believe that Russia can only exist through the Tsar – whether his name is Nicholas II, Alexander Iᵉʳ, Peter Iᵉʳ or Putin. To kill the tsar is to destroy the community, the body politic.
For this reason, I think that all the processes which, like a military defeat, lead to the idea that “Tsar Putin” is an impostor, can lead to his downfall. We have already seen such examples in Russian history, whether it is the war in Afghanistan which contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union, or the First World War which led to the fall of the Russian Empire. The war against Ukraine can have such an outcome.
What are the other scenarios?
First, Putin can stay in power until his biological death, which may take some time. This scenario is quite likely. You have to understand that Putinism is a “regime for old people”. It is a new Brezhnevism. It is a system that has moved away from reality, it is a world apart, which can change reality, but which may one day be devastated by it. Second possibility, one can imagine that even more radical and nationalist forces come to power. We would then be in a situation where the fascist ideology becomes the official ideology of Russia. Behind a democratic facade, the country would in reality be controlled by the military. Last possibility, power would be captured by external forces. And first of all, China.
The recent Prigozhin’s “march” on Moscow shows, however, that power is fragile…
Russian society is closed, as is the Russian political system. In a closed society, problems do not manifest themselves openly, they accumulate. At one point, there is an explosion and everything changes very quickly. This was the case during the events of 1917 – the Russian Empire fell brutally – and it is the same story with the fall of the Soviet Union: the edifice that had been built over decades fell in three days, in August 1991. I think we will know the same story. The current Russian regime is a house of cards, but no one knows when it will collapse. In two weeks ? In ten years ? Anyway, we have to be prepared for brutal and unexpected things.
“It’s not just about winning the war, it’s also about winning the peace, which will be very difficult”
How do you see the future of Ukraine?
From an ethnic and religious point of view, Ukrainian society is quite inclusive. We cannot envisage its future without Russian speakers. Ukraine is a multilingual, multi-confessional country, it’s a very interesting mix. When it comes to security, we must not be naive and think that this war will end with a ceasefire, or even with a change of regime in Moscow. In history, there have been times when we thought that Russia was becoming liberal and that everything was going to be fine. But each time, there has been a step back, towards an authoritarian state. This is what happened with Alexander Iᵉʳ, with Lenin, but also with Yeltsin. This is why you have to be vigilant. We must be prepared for the idea that even if the war ends, Russia will only think of accumulating new forces to resume the war and attack again, like in 2015. After a break of a few years, where there still had several deaths per month, the war resumed in 2022.
Why would that change? For this reason, I only see two solutions for the security of Ukraine and of Europe as a whole. Either Ukraine joins NATO, or Ukraine must regain its nuclear status. In both cases, the psychological element is essential. We can clearly see that Russia is not attacking the members of NATO: it is not attacking Latvia, Lithuania or Estonia. For what ? Because she’s afraid to do it. If we really want to create the conditions for this war not to be repeated, we must admit Ukraine into NATO or, if not, develop nuclear weapons in Ukraine. Remember that the causes of this war date back to the 1990s, when Ukraine, by signing the Budapest memorandum, renounced the nuclear technologies that could have saved it today. What did she receive in return? Nothing.
How will Ukraine, when the war ends, be able to rebuild itself? How not to sink into the eternal hatred of the Russian neighbor?
Rather than hatred, I would speak of contempt. Our President said it very clearly, addressing the Russians: cold, hunger, darkness and thirst are not as terrible and deadly for us as your “friendship and brotherhood”. It will take decades, but we will get rid of the remnants of imperial culture, we will regain our culture, our past, our language. In a few generations, historians of Russia and Ukraine will come together to talk about this war together.
What worries me more are the divisions that are likely to arise in Ukraine between those who, for example, fought, others who fled abroad or were forced to collaborate with the Russian occupier, those who have lost their homes, those who have been preserved… There may be processes of division – even if it will not reach the stage of fratricidal hatred, like what happened in the Balkans…
What will be the biggest challenges for the Ukrainian people after the war?
It is not only a question of winning the war, it is also necessary to win the peace, which will be very difficult. Our society can find itself completely crushed by war and never recover. This is what happens to most societies that are going through such a trial. Not losing our inner solidarity will be a great challenge. How, too, can we “take advantage” of the current security situation in order to make it an asset for our civilian life? Israel has been very successful in turning this security situation into a stimulus for technological development. How, then, not to sink into a huge demographic abyss? Ukraine’s population could be halved if Ukrainians who have taken refuge outside the country do not return. Finally, how to restore the economy and agriculture in the regions that have been mined, destroyed? Ukraine can experience after the war a period similar to the Glorious Thirties after the Second World War, but it can also experience the opposite situation…
In any case, we will have to live with a Russian neighbor who, since 1991 and the collapse of the Soviet Union, has never done cathartic work on the crimes of communism and has been bathed in nationalist discourse for years. Putinism. How to confront him with his past and the abuses that his soldiers commit, day after day, on Ukrainian soil?
This question of repentance is not very present in Russian intellectual history. The example that is often put forward is that of Dostoyevsky, but in Crime and Punishment, there is, in reality, only one chastisement, it is interior chastisement, interior dialogue, even religious enlightenment, but certainly not the idea that there are social rules and that s emancipating from these social rules exposes the culprit to the punishment of the court. For in Russia there is a contempt for social institutions.
Even among the Russian liberals, with a few rare exceptions, there is no great compassion for the Ukrainians. This war is seen more as a mistake than a crime; and rather as a stupidity than as a frightful moral event. The reason is that even for Russians who oppose the war, the idea that matters is that of Russian greatness. It prevents them from admitting that their country has committed many crimes in its history, through the imperial idea, which comes from Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, Catherine II, but also from Marxism. Hence this idea of Greater Russia, with this global messianism, but also this contempt for the people… This is also what is responsible for this war.
For a work of repentance, it would be necessary to renounce this idea of greatness, which would require enormous intellectual work, because there are, I repeat, few works on the subject in the intellectual tradition and Russian culture, unlike Germany, where, after Nazism, we were able to rely on many authors – Kant, the German Renaissance, painting and this idea of decentralized power, all this gave a foundation to the Germany after 1945. In France too, before the French Revolution. There had been, during the Estates General, this reflection that absolutism was a mistake.
Russians must look for the origins of their identity in their history, drawing inspiration for example from the existence of Novgorod [NDLR : cette ville médiévale prospère et “républicaine” du nord de la Russie, qui, entre les Xe et XVe siècles, montre que la Russie n’a pas toujours été soumise à des régimes autocratiques]. They must admit that the Ukrainians, by taking the democratic path, have taken a good direction, whereas they have chosen the path traced by Ivan the Terrible… To leave it, the work will be long. Very long.