Xavier Colás is a journalist and correspondent in Russia and Ukraine. A graduate in Journalism from the Complutense University of Madrid, he began writing about Central Europe in 1999. For 12 years, he was EL MUNDO’s correspondent in Russia, until he was expelled from the country in March 2024. We talk about his book “Putinistán,” in which he offers a detailed vision of Putinism and the figure of Vladimir Putin.
What is Russian society like?
As a society, Russia is very different from what we in Europe would consider normal. There is no civil society to speak of, and people are prostrate to the decisions of their government. In Europe we see the government as something that works for us, though we also recognise that it also deceives us. We cannot force it to do what we want, but we can dislodge people from power. In other words, we instil a certain fear—in a good sense of the word—in our governments, and that makes governments have a certain desire to satisfy us.
In Russia, what we have is a Redeemer Tsar who protects against external enemies, such as NATO and the EU, and internal ones: homosexuals, those who write problematic books or songs, those who protest that their husbands have been on the front lines for too long, and even those who call for more Ukrainians to be killed. While democracies look for solutions, dictatorships look for enemies. That is not to say that democracies are perfect, but time moves on, and politicians change. In Russia that is a problem, and that is the reason Putin has gone against Ukraine, because Ukraine is a country that has been changing very slowly. That’s the reason, it’s not a question of NATO, it’s not a question of teaching Russian, it’s not a question of anything else.
Most Russians, individually, are not in favour of crushing the Ukrainians, but as a society they do not react to what their government does. It is clear that they do not live in a democracy, but the problem is that, as a collective, they find it hard to face reality and call a spade a spade.
Perhaps they are too used to living under authoritarian regimes?
There is a tradition of authoritarianism in Russia, as there has been in other countries such as Spain. However, it is true that while all dictatorships created their secret police, in Russia it is the secret police that creates the dictatorship. The KGB never left; it merely changed its name to FSB, and, when the USSR ended, they were the ones who knew best the world to come and what the arrival of capitalism was going to be like. The KGB kept an eye on the communist party and the army, as it does now, and, with the fall of the USSR and the party, it will be the KGB that maintains its power and paves the way for absolute control. Putin’s arrival is providential because it represents the triumph of that whole apparatus, and that is why Russia is such an effective police state, because it is built around the security services.
Every state has a secret service, but Russia is a secret service that has a state.
Exactly. It is a secret service that creates a dictatorship in which, unlike the USSR, elections are allowed and people live a little better, and in which those who are a nuisance are imprisoned and killed, but what is not in their plans is to give up power or for anything to change. A Russian dissident told me that the secret services are there to assassinate the future, they work for the past. The members of the KGB react to any change and do not conceive that things change by themselves, that people see things differently, and they think that everything is due to external intervention because that is what they do, as has happened in the United States or with the independence process in Catalonia. That is why they react to the changes in Ukraine; they cannot allow it.
Is this resistance to change why groups ranging from conservative to leftist have been labelled ‘extremist’ and banned?
Yes, the fact that there is civil society where people express their ideas is a problem for Putinism and, in fact, one of the regime’s great victories has been to convince Russians not to join. The Kremlin convinced them that there was no reason to protect themselves from the government or to set limits on it. For that reason, when groups appear that defend ideas—even ideas that are not frowned upon by the regime—but promote them autonomously and make policy outside the government, they become a problem. Everything is centralised around the Kremlin, the security services and the army, and there can be nothing outside. What is intended, and to a large extent has been achieved, is an indifferent, compliant society that does not mobilise, and believes that it is not possible to change or improve things.
This disunity is what has also been pursued abroad when propaganda against Central European countries joining NATO. Russia does not want countries to unite to defend themselves, it wants countries to isolate themselves and return to a world where size matters. Russia has sold the countries around it that there was nothing to fear, but that if they came closer to NATO then they would become a threat. Time has made it clear who was a threat to whom, both inside Russia and outside.
Soldiers’ wives’ and mothers’ associations have been dubbed ‘foreign agents’ and banned almost as soon as they appear. Do you think the Kremlin fears this kind of movement, hence its strong reaction?
I always say that the Kremlin should not be lectured on how to repress or how to stay in power, because they have been in power for 24 years. The Kremlin acts that way and represses things that are in an incipient state, like the wives of mobilised people who were not even against the war, because they attack the problems while they are still small and don’t wait for them to grow. Often, when activists have been poisoned, it is questioned whether the government is to blame because the opponent in question had very few supporters, but the truth is that they prefer to intervene before the threat grows.
The largest exchange of prisoners between the US and Russia since the Cold War has taken place. How do you assess this exchange?
The first thing we have to look at is the cast that was on one plane and the cast that was on the other, because it reflects very well the situation in Russia right now. On the one hand, mostly Russian political prisoners released from Russia and on the other, hitmen, spies, and hackers. Putin does not leave his own behind, Russians yes, but not his own. All those Russia has demanded back have, in one way or another, an intimate relationship with the system.
With this ambitious swap, Putin wants to show that Russia can negotiate while still invading Ukraine. Russia loves to pose as a country like everyone else and from time to time carry out operations like the one in Ukraine that set it apart from the rest. What is clear is that the reason Navalny died is because Putin believed that, unlike dissidents like Yashin or Kara-Murza, who can stay alive outside Russia, Navalny could not stay alive. For the swap to be possible, Navalny had to disappear from the list of demands. Nevertheless, I think this is good news for both the Americans and the Russian dissidents.
You say that in Russia the population lives with “sidereal lies,” how so?
This is divided into two areas, outside and inside Russia. In Europe, we are used to always recognising some reason in the opponent when we debate with someone, because we expect the other side to be acting in good faith. In the face of sidereal lies, to concede some reason to the opponent is to assume a huge lie. We have good examples of these lies: the NATO biolabs that Russian propaganda claimed were all over Ukraine but have never been found; or the story of the bats that only bite Russian speakers. These are absurd lies, but many people have believed that there was some truth in them.
In the interior, what they achieve is that Russians do not believe in anything, which is why Russian propaganda is sometimes so absurd: it does not seek to convince, it seeks to make people doubt. Although this has also caused complications for the regime, for example, when during COVID the Russians did not believe in the vaccine offered by the government. In the end, the government always wins, because it makes lies ‘an opinion.’ With their arrogance in lying, they achieve a certain status and continue to defend their position, as when they accuse the Ukrainians of war crimes that Russia practically commits on a daily basis, because what matters is not convincing, what matters is never keeping quiet.
You mentioned the vaccine. Abroad, the Russian media sold an anti-vaccine discourse, but in Russia, speaking out against the vaccine meant serious problems. In other words, one discourse at home and another outside.
Yes, it is a cynicism that is found in many other matters. For example, on the outside Ukraine and the United States are accused of warmongering, and it is said that a negotiated peace with Russia must be sought, but on the inside, it is not possible to even think of calling for peace or negotiation in Moscow, only total victory and the surrender of Ukraine. Inside is insolent and arrogant warmongering, and outside they play with the idea of peace.
What was it like to work as a correspondent in Russia?
It was always difficult for me and the other correspondents to work there. In the last few years we were treated as enemies and we had very difficult conditions of entry and exit. The pressure was palpable, because we were talking openly about war in a country where it is not allowed to say that there is a war. Additionally, we were interviewing people who were not allowed to appear in the Russian media. It was increasingly difficult to go unnoticed because so many independent journalists had left that you stood out even if you didn’t want to, and I was even quoted in the Russian media. Nevertheless, I continued to do my work as usual until I was not allowed to continue in Russia.
Will Putinistan die with Putin?
Yes, I don’t think they will manage a successful transfer of power. They have a chance, but it is very difficult and I think there will be a window of opportunity. We will see what Russian society is really like and what Russians are like when Putin dies. Dictatorships last a long time, but the regime does not usually outlive the dictator.
Is there no one to succeed him?
There is no dauphin because it is not in his interest to have one. Putin doesn’t want anyone to overshadow him, anyone who could replace him at any time. That’s the problem with dictatorships: it’s very difficult to succeed. And Putin’s dictatorship is already in its final phase. He has to burn more and more freedoms, kill more and more people, imprison more and more dissidents, disrupt more and more Russians, and throw more and more fuel on the fire so that everything stays the same. The regime’s efforts to stay in power are growing. The Kremlin is an enemy of the future and is becoming increasingly aggressive in the face of change.
For example, Putin’s first great enemy, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, spent ten years in prison, but Putin’s last great enemy, Aleksei Navalny, did not get out of prison alive. The big political crime I covered in Russia was the death of Boris Nemtsov in 2015. Then there was a huge, authorised demonstration in central Moscow, but nine years later the police have arrested everyone who sporadically lights a few candles at makeshift memorials to Navalny. Putin’s regime has changed, it is not the same as it was a few years ago. It has become much tougher, and this is a sign that it is in its final phase.
