Distrusting Z-Patriots, Putin Is Replacing Russian Volunteerism With Terror

Through centralization, re-Sovietization, and reopening the gulags

The special military operation was supposed to be short and victorious. It has been neither, and now civilian volunteer support is collapsing. “Donations are very scarce, people are fed up,” Elena, a volunteer fundraiser in Kursk Oblast, tells The Insider. “When you see the end of the road, it’s much easier to keep going than when you don’t know how much farther it stretches.” Russians are increasingly giving up. “At the start, we thought it would all be over quickly, so people were more willing to donate. But now there’s no end in sight, and you’re constantly asked to give more. Few are willing,” she says.

Elena is one of four Russians who talked to reporter Valentina Matrenina. All of them say that donations have dwindled. Peace negotiations have inspired exhaustion. Corruption has worn away the patriotic shine that the Russian military had enjoyed. “This year I finally quit the volunteer movement for good,” Ruslan, a uniform supplier, says. “I don’t want to deal with it anymore. I’ve had enough.” He used to send troops whatever they said they needed. His breaking point came when “the fighters I’d sent nearly a hundred thousand rubles ($1,240) blew it all that same day in a bathhouse with prostitutes.” Of course, none of this means that Russia will stop the war.

Meanwhile, in Ukraine, volunteers still make up a vital portion of civilian air defenses. They cook meals for troops and arrange caravans of non-military aid. A large Ukrainian diaspora collects donations from around the world to supply everything needful from flashlights to thermal camouflage. To be sure, war exhaustion is real. Morale is still high in Ukraine, though. We can tell because Ukraine still exists. If Ukraine was experiencing the same collapse in volunteerism as Russia reportedly is right now, the war — and Ukraine — would already be over. The real question is how Russia will continue the war without any voluntaryism at all, and of course the very Russian answer will be terror.

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Pokrovsk And The Gambler's Fallacy

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