Russia Reform Monitor No. 2551

AN OLIVE BRANCH TO MOSCOW
The West's strategy of isolating Russia diplomatically has been put on pause, it seems. Russia will reportedly be invited – by the United States, no less – to the next Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, which will be hosted in Washington in 2023. This decision represents a 180 degree policy turn from how Washington handled the subject of Russia at an APEC forum in May, when U.S. officials walked out of a meeting at which the Russian Economy Minister was the speaker. 

The move may be rooted in pragmatic considerations. Though the West has generally enjoyed a united front when it comes to Russian sanctions (and approaches to the war in Ukraine), the same cannot be said for other global actors. Indonesia, for example, invited Moscow to the G20 summit in November, despite pressure from the West to disinvite and expel Russian President Vladimir Putin from the group. It is likely that Washington, with its decision to invite Russia to the upcoming APEC forum, slated to take place in San Francisco, is seeking to signal to its Asian partners that they do not have to pick a side between Russia and the United States. (Reuters, December 12, 2022) 

MORE SIGNS OF DOMESTIC DISCONTENT
These days, anti-war dissidents are not the only people openly criticizing the Russian government’s incursion into Ukraine. Increasingly, Vladimir Putin's troubled war effort is catching flak from the political right, as nationalist figures have begun calling out the failings of the Russian military. Thus, Igor Girkin, a prominent Russian nationalist and former FSB official who played a leading role in the 2014 annexation of Crimea, recently posted a lengthy video on social media lambasting the Russian armed forces and calling for their complete overhaul. "It is not just me," Girkin opined in the footage. "[P]eople are not blind and deaf at all: people at the mid-level there do not even hide their views which, how do I put it, are not fully complimentary about the president or the defence minister." (Reuters, December 11, 2022) 

WHAT RUSSIAN ELITES THINK ABOUT THE WAR NOW
Some ten months into Russia's military campaign in Ukraine, domestic opinion about the war – and its consequences – is hardening among Russian elites. For at least half a year, the Kremlin has been commissioning weekly confidential polls among some 900 "officials, political managers and experts" to gauge their feelings toward what has become the defining conflict of Vladimir Putin's presidency. The trendlines from those surveys are striking. Since May, the percentage of respondents who think the Kremlin's war is going well has dropped precipitously, while those who believe the Russian military is struggling has skyrocketed. 

Specifically, less than a quarter of those polled in the official surveys now think the Ukraine war effort is "going to plan," while the percentage of those who think it isn't is now nearing 50%. Moreover, the overall war effort is becoming less popular; as of mid-November, 60% of those surveyed said that Putin did the right thing by starting the war, the lowest figure in half a year. And while the majority (76%) of older respondents approve of Putin's decision, far fewer younger Russians (just 40%) do – highlighting a stark generational divide in attitudes toward the conflict even among those most inclined to support it. (The Moscow Times, December 9, 2022) 

[EDITORS' NOTE: Given the effect of Russia's increasingly authoritarian political climate on pollsters and respondents alike, the results of all public opinion surveys carried out within Russia should be viewed with some degree of caution.] 

LEGALIZING WAR CRIMES
Russia's lower house of parliament, the State Duma, has proposed a new legislative measure that, if approved, would effectively provide legal protections to atrocities by the Russian armed forces carried out on Ukrainian soil. The draft law, the first reading of which was approved by the chamber's deputies on December 13th, "would remove criminal liability for crimes on the occupied territories of Ukraine if they were committed to 'defend the interests' of Russia," Meduza reports. The territories in question are the self-proclaimed Luhansk National Republic and Donetsk National Republic, which Moscow recognizes, as well as parts of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions occupied by Russian forces. The law, at least in its current form, does not define the "interests of the Russian Federation," thereby potentially opening the door for any war crime or atrocity to be legally protected by the Russian state. (Meduza, December 14, 2022)