Russian Politics Today Stability and Fragility

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian society has been molded by different ideological forces. Those representing conservative values – understood as a combination of references to the national culture’s exceptionalism, Orthodoxy, and a vague “traditional values” narrative – have historically comprised a plurality, and even sometimes a majority. The Presidential Administration under Vladimir Putin has been capturing that dynamic to its own advantage, trying to secure the political loyalty of these conservative-minded segments of the population and mobilize them in support of the regime. Within this conservative segment, the Russian Orthodox Church has been gaining in influence to the point that it is now Russia’s key ideological entrepreneur, pushing for a “moralization” of society and politics and developing lobbying strategies to penetrate secular state institutions: the military, the school system, and the judiciary. Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine has dramatically shifted the conservative equilibrium toward justifying mass violence against Ukraine and repression at home.