(MOSCOW) – A new metro station has opened in Moscow, the first in Russia to incorporate the war in Ukraine into its design, as the conflict becomes increasingly woven into the fabric of everyday life. The station, named General Kartashov Boulevard after a Soviet military engineer who died in a Nazi concentration camp, features a sign above the entrance reading “Engineer Corps or Sappers, Special Military Operation.”
A panel near the ticket barriers displays the letters SVO, standing for Special Military Operation, alongside images of military hardware and drones. This is seen as an example of the memorialisation of the war in real time.
The Victory Museum in Moscow, a giant complex devoted to the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany, now also houses a section on the Special Military Operation, seemingly an attempt by the authorities to connect two very different wars in the consciousness of the Russian people. Faces, weapons, and objects from the war in Ukraine are already presented as museum pieces.
A whole exhibition is dedicated to North Korean troops who have been helping Russia fight Ukraine, titled “Eternal Friendship.” The museum gift shop sells “Stalin, Not One Step Back” calendars, posters of Felix Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the Soviet secret police, and Putin notebooks with the inscription, “Russia isn’t frightened of anything.”
The updated Russian history textbook for 11th grade contains a whole chapter on the subject, Chapter 37, titled “Russia Today, the Special Military Operation.” Russian students are told that the conflict is the fault of the West, whose ultimate aim is allegedly the dismemberment of Russia and control over its resources.
They are also told it is the fault of Ukraine, which is portrayed as an ultra-nationalist state. Russian soldiers are presented as heroes. The textbook states, “The valour, dignity, honour, and loyalty to their oath of our soldiers and volunteer fighters, doctors, teachers, builders, volunteers. These are the real heroes of our time.”
Alongside the routinisation and memorialisation of the war, there is also what appears to be its sanctification. Russians are being told that God is on their side. The army newspaper, Krasnaya Zvezda, or Red Star, ran a headline last Wednesday reading, “With holy faith, we head to victory.” It reported that parts of the relics of the blessed Grand Prince Dmitri Donskoy, miraculously found, have been transferred to various units of the Russian armed forces in the combat zone as well as to military universities of the Russian defence ministry.
A Russian soldier fighting in Ukraine, code name Athlete, is quoted as saying, “The discovery of the relics of the patron saint of the Russian army is a powerful incentive for soldiers to defeat the forces of evil as soon as possible.”
A Moscow art exhibition in 2023, titled “We are Russians, God is with us,” carried a similar message. After more than four and a half years of war, the mood inside Russia remains a subject of interest. While not a detailed sociological study, conversations with passers-by near the new metro station offer a glimpse into public thinking.
The view from one Russian paper, Argumenty i Fakty, is that in a couple of months, Trump, Putin, and Xi will meet to divide up the world on 18th November at the APEC Summit in Shenzhen, China. The paper suggests they are preparing a “Yalta 2” treaty. The original Yalta treaty in 1945, signed by Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt, was about reorganising post-war Europe. The paper notes that for Russia, participation in a big three meeting would mean the very public collapse of Western efforts to claim that Russia is isolated.
One event Moscow was watching closely last week was the Republican Midterm Convention in Dallas. The Russian government paper, Rossiyskaya Gazeta, explained that for Russia, the convention is important because its results will make it clear whether the so-called window of opportunity in relations with the United States has slammed shut.
A defeat for Trump’s supporters in the midterms would mean the emergence in the legislature of irreconcilable opposition to the initiatives of the White House chief, which would seriously complicate Trump’s possibilities to mediate on Ukraine. Maintaining the current status quo would allow the president to continue his previous course and preserve what he has achieved in dialogue with Moscow. Opinion polls after the Dallas convention will show what scenario Russia should prepare for.
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