How Putin Wants to Strengthen Russian Patriotism

Vladimir Putin wants to see a traditional and more patriotic Russia. One way to achieve this is through special programs. FOI researcher Pär Gustafsson Kurki has studied two of them.

Like a fly frozen in amber. That’s how the Russian president’s vision can be described: a Russia in pure and untouched beauty, isolated from the decay the rest of the world is going through. This is according to the independent Russian ethnographer Aleksandra Arkhipova, who has been labelled as a foreign agent by Russian authorities.

It’s a striking metaphor, according to Pär Gustafsson Kurki, Senior Analyst at FOI’s Department of Defence Analysis . He has now used this as a starting point for his report: Putin’s Patriotic Agenda at War — Guns, God, Sport, and Roubles. There, he examines the political goal that Aleksandra Arkhipova calls patriotic stasis, a state where society’s values remain completely unchanged.

“Putin wants Russia to live in a kind of patriotic isolation from the outside world, a state where nothing changes,” says Pär Gustafsson Kurki.

Putin’s Self-Image: A Light in the Darkness

According to Aleksandra Arkhipova, Putin’s set of traditional values is derived from both the 1970s under Leonid Brezhnev and the Orthodox Christianity of medieval Russia.

“Putin also has the apocalyptic idea that Russia is surrounded by decadent countries where Russia is the only light, and where special leaders like himself can resist the darkness,” says Pär Gustafsson Kurki.

To conserve values for the future, the Russian regime is investing in patriotic programmes. These investments began in 2000 when Putin became president. Over the past five to ten years, funding has increased significantly, especially after the invasion of Ukraine.

There are numerous patriotic programmes. Pär Gustafsson Kurki has studied two of them: a military-patriotic sports centre, focused on children and young people, and a programme called “Time for Heroes,” which aims to build a patriotic elite of former combatants. Both programmes were started in 2023.

Pär Gustafsson Kurki has used official Russian sources and journalistic publications. He is highly aware that what emerges is propaganda.

“I have been critical but assumed that quantitative data is relatively reliable,” he says.

He has also drawn from academic sources, particularly an international attitude survey on patriotic sentiments in the Russian population, conducted by researchers Michael Alexeev and William Pyle. They conclude that the Russian population is highly militantly patriotic.

“One usually distinguishes between benevolent patriotism, where citizens can express thoughts and opinions that go against the official narrative, and a blind, militant patriotism, where it is difficult to have an independent opinion. The latter is close to nationalism,” says Pär Gustafsson Kurki.

Creating a New Patriotic Elite

The military-patriotic sports centre is located in Moscow and has 21 branches in the regions. Branches have also been created in the occupied Ukrainian regions. The organisation provides basic military training for teenagers, including everything from firearms exercises to drone-pilot training and “tactical sports.”

The initiative comes from two high-ranking men in Putin’s regime, Sergei Kirienko and Yurii Trutnev. Both are also chairs of the Russian martial arts association, which has functioned as a kind of creator of the military-patriotic sports centre, according to Pär Gustafsson Kurki.

“Instructors and facilities have been used to be able to start faster in the regions. I argue that the sports centre should not be seen as a separate organisation but as a phenomenon within the Putin regime, where people, interests, and values are united in a network beyond traditional organisational boundaries.”

According to Pär Gustafsson Kurki, the head of Putin’s youth army collaborates with the military-patriotic sports centre and is a former soldier who fought in Mariupol in 2022. An estimated 22,000 people died in the fighting, during which Russian forces attacked civilian targets, including children.

“It’s interesting what values one wants to promote; people who levelled a city and killed civilians — those are the values they want to preserve,” says Pär Gustafsson Kurki.

“Time for Heroes” is an education and mentorship programme targeting veterans from the invasion of Ukraine. The idea is for them to find a path into civilian life and become highly-qualified leaders who can work in state, municipal, or state-owned companies, according to Pär Gustafsson Kurki.

“These are people whose loyalty has been tested in armed conflict, and whom one wants to reward. The idea is to create a new patriotic elite that will be woven into state administration and state enterprises.”

So far, only 83 of 21,000 applicants have completed “Time for Heroes,” but the programme is set to grow.

“They can be effectively used in domestic propaganda, showing they’ve had brilliant careers afterwards.”

The Paradox: Turbulence to Achieve Stability

In the report, Pär Gustafsson Kurki notes that the patriotic programmes are mostly a way to channel and reinforce the patriotism that already exists. To some extent, he argues, they reflect a pursuit of patriotic stasis. At the same time, he identifies what he calls a patriotic paradox.

“The state wants to conserve values over time, but the means of getting there are turbulent wartime conditions. The propaganda says that war is good, that it creates spirituality and patriotism. But it also creates significant social changes.”

In Russian policy documents, basic military training is emphasised as an important part of patriotic efforts, much more so than in countries like China or the USA, points out Pär Gustafsson Kurki.

“Survey data shows that the Russian population’s willingness to go to war is low. They are proud and enthusiastic about Russia’s ability to invade and defend its perceived interests, but simultaneously less willing to fight for their country than citizens in countries that place less emphasis on basic military training.”

Russian citizens are offered significant financial incentives to go to war.

“That is also a paradox. You buy soldiers who are supposed to go to war and maybe die, and at the same time want them to come home and to have become patriots,” says Pär Gustafsson Kurki.