Russia: Weakened State, 2nd

In this book, we do not see Russia as an “other” that is fundamentally and radically different from “us,” and we do not share the essentialist discourse that frames Russia as a civilization antithetical to the Western one; on the
contrary, we see Russia as part of a continuum with the West and in a permanent mirror game with it. What was happening in Russia before the war was deeply inscribed into broader global trends that can also be observed in the West. Distrust of the post–World War II global order and established institutions, doubts about the direction taken by the world economy and the processes of globalization, and the rise of conservative values and suspicion of some elements of the liberal system were not unique to Russia; they could also be found in Western societies. The decision to launch the war has partly broken these ideological affinities, but Moscow’s voice continues to resonate in the Global South, and its links with Europe are not totally broken.