Does Victory Look Like This?

There is a judgement of history after all.

Legal scholar, physicist and writer Mark Landau, who left Russia after the 1917 revolution, claimed in one of his works: “There is no judgement of history. There is a court of historians, and it changes every decade.”

Landau in his works often presented Russia as Themis, holding the scales of history in her hands. This image comes to mind when you see how Russian officialdom begins to form an image of victory, filling one of the scales.

Russian Public Opinion Research Center CEO Valery Fedorov is confident that Russia has already won a convincing victory and it looks like this: “finding itself, strengthening Russian identity, growing self-respect, consolidating Russia’s status as one of the key players in the global space.” Fedorov also notes victory on the “information and psychological front”: the level of support for the president has grown significantly (from 64% in January 2022 to 76% in December 2024), 92% of citizens call themselves patriots, 81% testified to “pride in the country”.

These figures, the sociological origin of which the Russian Public Opinion Research Center uses to create an image of victory, have a price. So, what’s on the other side?

Eastern Ukraine lies in ruins. The number of deaths on both sides is classified, but the figures still break through the censorship. 54% of Russians admitted that the war has negatively affected their daily lives.

Russian cities and villages have been subjected to large-scale shelling for three years now: about 400 civilians have died in air strikes over three years, more than half of them from the Belgorod region.

In the Kursk region, where part of the territory has been controlled by the Ukrainian army for several months, almost two thousand civilians are listed as missing. According to official data from Rosstat alone, prices inside the country have increased by 29% in three years of the special military operation.

If we take the cost of a minimum set of food products, then, according to Rosstat, it has increased by 32.4%. In reality, the inflation rate is even higher.

According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the number of serious and especially serious crimes in the country has been steadily increasing since 2022. At the same time, the results of last year have already broken the record for 14 years — 617 thousand crimes. In 2024, the natural population decline in Russia increased by 20% — 596 thousand more people died than were born.

The number of newborns decreased to 1.22 million, and the mortality rate increased to 1.82 million people.

On the same scale we can add the collapse of civil society institutions, free media and many other indicators, which for censorship reasons it is simply dangerous to list today.

Does victory look like this?

If we return to the image of Russia as Themis, awaiting the judgment of history, it would be nice to remove the blindfold from its eyes. You can't see the truth when you’re blindfolded. And it also seems to me that the “judgment of history”, which Mark Landau denied, does exist. It is ahead.

Andrey Kalitin, Telegram

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