Russia Against Modernity

Putin’s war is a special operation against modernity. The invasion has been directed against Ukraine, but the war has a broader target: the modern world of climate awareness, energy transition and digital labour. By trading oil and gas, promoting Trump and Brexit, spreading corruption, boosting inequality and homophobia, subsidising far-right movements and destroying Ukraine, Putin’s clique aims at suppressing the ongoing transformation of modern societies.

Alexander Etkind distinguishes between Russia’s pompous, weaponised paleomodernity on the one hand, and the lean, decentralised gaiamodernity of the Anthropocene on the other. Putin’s clique has used various strategies – from climate denialism and electoral interference to war and genocide – to resist and subvert modernity. Working on political, cultural and even demographic levels, social mechanisms convert the vicious energy of the oil curse into all-out aggression.

Dissecting these mechanisms, Etkind’s brief but rigorous analyses of social structuration, cultural dynamics and family models reveal the agency that drives the Russian war against modernity. This short, sharp critique of the Russian regime combines political economy, social history and demography to predict the decolonising and defederating of Russia.