Vital Interests: Nicolai, thanks for joining us today on the Vital Interests forum. We have had several conversations on this forum dealing with Russia but it would be good to delve into this topic some more. You're a perfect person to talk to having just come back from Europe where you spent time in Ukraine and Italy and can provide us with fresh insights. 

Recently President Putin gave his annual state of the nation address to the Russian Federal Assembly. He talked about the spiritual and moral values which sustain Russia and distinguish it from other nations which were forgetting about these essential values. This struck me as an interesting statement by Putin and worth exploring. From your informed perspective what are the spiritual and moral values that Putin is referring to that define Russian society today?

Nicolai Petro: Since 2013 Putin has focused particular attention on Russia’s heritage as a multicultural nation. In his September 19, 2013 speech at the Valdai Conference he emphasized multiculturalism at a time when his counterparts in the West were disavowing it. He later made a distinction between multiculturalism and pluriculturalism, defining Russia as a pluricultural society. 

The distinction as I understand it is that multiculturalism encourages individual cultural self identification, whereas pluriculturalism emphasizes the need for cultural collectives to retain their cultural identities within the larger community. To make the distinction clear to your readers, the United States would be an example of a multicultural society. The European Union, by contrast would be an example of the pluricultural society because it says, “Look you Catalonians, you Corsicans, you Welsh - you have an identity that should be encouraged and recognized as a positive social value even though you don't have statehood.” The distinction is apparent even in their respective mottos: “Out of Many, One” for the United States, and “United in Diversity” for the European Union. 

Since then Putin and foreign minister Sergey Lavrov have continued to make reference to the advantages of Russia’s cultural complexities. I think it serves as a marker and a pole of attraction for some constituencies around the world as to what the current Russian government stands for. It sets Russia up favorably to appeal for global public opinion, by distinguishing it from an increasingly secular, morally disoriented, and disunited West. 

I wrote an article about this back in 2015 in The National Interest “Russia’s Moral Framework and Why it Matters.” One thing that I remember was how quickly a certain wing of American conservatives latched onto this view. I'm thinking, in particular, of Pat Buchanan - someone whose praise you wouldn't expect regarding Putin. In December, 2013 Buchanan wrote a piece in which he said that Putin’s rhetoric on traditional values could make him “one of us [conservatives].” ["Putin’s Paleoconservative Moment," The American Conservative, December 17, 2013]. He seemed to suggest that shared religious and moral values might even serve as the basis for a possible rapprochement with Russia.

VI: Is the religious component in Russian society that Putin is referring to is the Russian Orthodox Church?

Nicolai Petro: Not entirely. The centrality of religious identity in a pluriculturall Russia is meant to allow Orthodox Christians to be comfortable expressing their Orthodox heritage in public, but also for Muslims to be comfortable expressing their Muslim faith, Jews to be comfortable expressing beliefs, Protestants, Catholics, et cetera. There is a forum, the Interreligious Council of Russia, that regularly convenes the heads of all major religious organizations in Russia. Its purpose is two-fold: First, to defuse conflicts among the various religious communities. Second, to present a united religious agenda to politicians. It has been quite successful on both fronts, and its activities cover not just Russia, but the entire CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States).

VI: How deeply does this religiosity permeate into Russian society? Do people identify with religion? Go to church? Is religious instruction a component of youth education?

Nicolai Petro: The Soviet Union (which by the way, we should be using less and less as our reference point when speaking of contemporary Russia) was officially an atheist society. According to its constitution, propagandizing religious faith and instruction were prohibited, although a small loophole was left for private worship. This effectively shut down church life by preventing the social interaction of communicants. It has taken a long time to overcome intellectual and bureaucratic resistance to the Soviet atheist legacy because, whereas on the one hand this was a suppression of freedom of choice, on the other hand, the secularization of society was also deemed to be an indication of social progress among Western intellectuals. 

The Soviet bureaucrats, who remained largely in place for a decade or so after 1991, were therefore skeptical of the value of religion. Not having been raised in any religious tradition, they did not understand it. Over the last 15 to 20 years, this attitude has reversed. As a result the Russian Orthodox Church, as well as other institutionalized faith communities, are now playing an increasingly prominent public role.

This began, as one would expect among Orthodox Christians, with a careful review of church teachings regarding the role of the church in society [“Bases of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church,” Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, 2000]. As a result of this review, for the first time in seventy years, Orthodox Christians were encouraged to actively promote their faith in the public arena.

We are now beginning to see the first fruits of these efforts. A 2011 Ipsos poll conducted in 23 countries suggested that Russians had become the most religious nation in Europe. It is, of course, notoriously difficult to measure religious faith. Nevertheless, asking the same question, no matter how vague, in a transnational context provides us with a valuable comparative perspective, It is undeniable that, since the collapse of the USSR, Russians have become much more accepting of religion in general, and of it playing a prominent role in public life. 

I noticed this even in 2001 when I spent a year working for the municipal government in Northwestern Russia. Behavior that would have raised eyebrows in 1996, such as saying a prayer before a meal or asking for a priest’s blessing at some public event, was already becoming more or less routine. I was struck by the fact that, by the mid-2000s restaurants began to spontaneously offer a Lenten menu option in the period leading up to Easter. It was simply considered a necessity in modern Russia. These are some of the signs I see of Russia’s transition to the presence of religion in everyday life. 

You asked about religious education, There is a program of religious education, adopted by that Interreligious Council that I mentioned before. It is a compromise document formulated in such a way as to make religious or ethical instruction an elective component of the secondary school curriculum. Interestingly, it was the Patriarch of Moscow Kirill, who insisted that a secular ethical alternative to religious instruction be included.

VI: When you talk about the fact that the churches in Russia, at least the Russian Orthodox Church, are involved with commenting on public policy, this must be policy that supports Putin's ideas of governance? Religious leaders don’t seem to talk about democratic ideals, or represent any opposition to the government?

Nicolai Petro: No. I would say that this attitude attaches to a much larger group than just Orthodox Christians. Traditional Christians, of whom the Orthodox are a subset, try not to put themselves in opposition to any God-given authority. According to the Church’s teaching, this is what the Bible teaches, and I've always argued that, in order to comment on doctrine, one must be able to understand it from the point of view of the faithful, otherwise you're not going to get very far. 

In this instance, the point to remember is not that the Russian Orthodox Church is conservative, but rather that it is traditional, and that traditionally Christianity has no political stand, because its mission transcends all politics. It therefore seeks to understand God's purpose for the world, which has multiple manifestations. These include political manifestations, social manifestations, economic manifestations, cultural manifestations, et cetera. All of these manifestations are part of God's design, but we can only guess at this design since our perception is limited. The best that we can hope for, therefore, is to act, as President Abraham Lincoln put, “with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right.”

It is with this understanding of the potential for error that the Russian Orthodox Church takes stands that are supportive of secular authorities in Russia, just as they do in every country. By the way, their position is the same with respect to all political regimes, be they fascist, communist, or democratic. It is an apolitical stand,- the idea is that we do not know why God sent us these regimes..

The example of the role of the Orthodox Church under Nazis and Communists is often used to elaborate what it means that the Church takes no official stand with respect to a regime. Where the political regime adopts policies that are the antithesis of Christian values, Christians are obliged to speak up against policies, without condemning the government itself. In an American context, one can illustrate this by looking at abortion. As an Orthodox Christian, I should presumably lobby for anti-abortion laws, That does not mean, however, that I should challenge the political authority of a government that permits abortion, since that government is also part of God’s design. Since such moral contradictions are endemic to a “fallen” world, Christians are in no position to sit in judgment of political systems, selecting which is “less fallen” among them. That, in a nutshell, is the Orthodox view of politics, as I understand it. 

VI: Certainly the Russian Orthodox Church influences the way the Putin government regards certain societal attitudes, for example, their stand on homosexuality?

Nicolai Petro: To the extent that a religious voice can now be heard in the public square, it has an influence. As in every country, however, we cannot know what the political outcome of that message is. Some, hearing the voice of the Church will support its call with corresponding legislative initiatives, while others, hearing that voice, will seek to counter it.

The issue of homosexuality can be considered typical in this regard. The Russian Orthodox Church follows traditional Judaeo-Christian teaching, which deems homosexual acts to be a sin that is best addressed through compassion and repentance. Discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is prohibited by Russian law, and there are no laws regarding intimate acts among consenting adults. The only restriction that does exist is a prohibition on the advertisement of a homosexual lifestyle to minors.This could be considered a concession to the church, for which the idea of sin revolves around temptation.

However, there is one additional institutional advantage that the Russian Orthodox Church has with respect to government policies. In the Russian system of government, in addition to three branches of government that we’re familiar with in the United States -executive, legislative, and judicial - there is a fourth advisory function. It is institutionalized at the national level in the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation, and replicated throughout the country at the municipal and regional level. A regional civic chamber had just been set up in the Novgorod region, where we live in 2001, and I attended several of its sessions.

These civic chambers serve in a review and advisory capacity to ministries and government agencies, providing oversight and legislative guidance. Western analysts who have studied them describe them as “mediating between conflicting groups, acting as platforms for discussions on social issues and coordinating local NGOs.” Such groups include sports and fitness organizations, environmental groups, groups lobbying for refugees, and of course religious groups. In the United States they would probably be labelled “special interests,” but the Civic Chamber format gives them an institutional and public voice.

In addition, the Russian Orthodox Church has its own public outreach department, which is responsible for formulating and implementing social guidance. Over the past 15 years or so, the press has reported that it has signed agreements with the Ministry of Defense, the FSB, the Foreign Ministry, and other ministries to consult and offer advice on matters deemed to be of mutual interest. 

VI: Would you say that these religious advisory entities in their messaging to the public are promoting a Russian nationalist agenda? Can they be compared to Christian Nationalists in the United States?

Nicolai Petro: I think they would prefer the term patriotic. This is a vital distinction. People often confuse the two terms, but since starting my research on Ukraine, I have looked at the history of the terms “nationalist” and “patriot,” and learned just how very different they are. I just finished a piece explaining the difference, and why it is so important. [A video lecture is currently available here; the article will be forthcoming in Russia in Global Affairs, vol. 19, № 3 (July/September 2021)].  

In a nutshell, the distinction is this. Nationalism mobilizes through an exclusive definition of who belongs to the community in which civic identity is commensurate with ethnicity and culture, Nationalism is exclusive because it is based on criteria that are inherited. Patriotism mobilizes through an inclusive definition of who belongs to the community in which civic identity is kept separate from ethnicity and culture. Patriotism is inclusive because it is based on criteria that are chosen. 

Nationalists believe that you cannot be a citizen unless you have the right blood, the right language, and the right religion. Former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s electoral campaign consisted of just three words– “Armiya, mova, vira” – Army, Language, and Faith. Our army defends our country, our language unites the country, and our faith defends our heritage. By “our'' he meant Galician Ukrainians, a region with the very different language, culture, and traditions of Eastern and Southern Ukrainians. Not surprisingly, he lost in every region of the country but one, 

I would therefore disagree with you on what Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church are trying to accomplish. As they understand it, they are both trying to provide a common civic identity with a patriotic core. By virtue of being pluricultural, however, this civic identity cannot be nationalistic, since it would be impossible to reconcile cultural pluralism with nationalism, It can, however, be reconciled with a patriotic agenda which separates civic and cultural loyalty. 

VI: Nicolai, we've been talking about the spiritual foundations of what Putin was talking about but he was also making reference to the moral authority of Russia, the Russian state. What is the contemporary moral authority of the Russian state? Under communism, certainly, we understood the foundation of the Soviet state to be the ideology of Marxism-Leninism.

Nicolai Petro: The issue of the state’s moral authority is an interesting one. I see Russia as following the same pattern as Western democracies. Let me clarify what I mean by asking you, “is the United States government a moral authority?”

VI: American would like to think so. We are the City on the Hill - the moral beacon for the world to follow. 

Nicolai Petro: Most Russians would probably feel the same way. Some look at their government and take some form of moral guidance from it, probably derived from the country’s history, traditions, and outlook on life. Putin makes a lot of vague references to the importance of remaining “who we are as Russians,” without really going into detail, because as soon as you do, somebody feels excluded. I would expect the Russian state therefore to lay claim to the same moral authority for Russians that the American state does for Americans.

A separate question, however, is to what extent a country’s moral authority extends beyond its borders. Do Germans, for example, look at the British and and say, "Now, there's a moral country for you."? I doubt that occurs very much, and if it does, then at a much lower level of intensity 

This morning my wife sent me an article from The Guardian with the headline: “US seen as bigger threat to democracy than Russia or China, global poll finds.”The poll was commissioned by the Alliance of Democracies Foundation, which is headed by former Danish prime minister and NATO chief, Anders Fogh Rasmussen. Even though 44% of respondents in 53 countries were concerned that the U.S. threatens democracy, compared to 38% for China, and just 28% for Russia, Rasmussen concluded that: "The positive support for an Alliance of Democracies shows that people want more cooperation to push back against autocrats. Leaders should take note of these perceptions and act upon them."

The poll results say exactly the opposite, but what else can he say - this is his bread and butter. It just goes to show that if you have a vested interest in the narrative it's going to be very, very difficult for you to get away from it, no matter what the evidence shows.

VI: Nicolai this brings us to another point which is the idea of vested interest and geopolitical rivalries. The general perception of Russia in the United States is that this is a country, a people, who oppose American values. If Putin says that Russia has spiritual and moral authority in the world, he is challenging America’s moral leadership. You've written about the value gap between the United States and Russia - is that what this is about?

Nicolai Petro: I wouldn't ascribe this view to all Americans but there is certainly a prominent segment of the American political elite that feels that the United States is the moral authority for the rest of the world. There's a crucial distinction to bear in mind here. The counter position that Russia, China, India and other nations take is not that they are the moral authority for the entire world, but rather that each nation should be left to its own moral devices.Their message to America, in other words, is “stop shoving your moral authority in our faces.” In the long run, I don't see how America can win this argument, since it seems unlikely that the U.S. government will ever be able to convince all other nations that “America knows best.”

The idea that there should be just one set of rules for the entire world, and that it should be determined in Washington, D.C., strikes me as a really crazy notion upon which to base our foreign policy. 

VI: Now that the Biden administration has come in with a mandate to re-engage with the world, does this mean an effort to reimpose American leadership, that the U.S. needs to enforce its agenda and ideas of global order lest the world descend into chaos and confusion? On the other hand, isn’t what is really needed is American leadership that seeks to understand global challenges and then cooperates on a multilateral basis with the global community to find feasible solutions?

Nicolai Petro: If only it were in that order, starting with understanding the rest of the world first. I think more humility is called for, the forgotten tradition of humility that extends from George Washington’s Farewell Address, through George F. Kennan, and continues today in the writings of retired diplomats like Jack F. Matlock, Jr., and Chas W. Freeman, Jr. It is a tradition missing in the rhetoric and thinking of the Biden administration’s foreign policy team. The results is the kind of public debacle that we saw recently in Anchorage, at the meeting between senior Chinese and American diplomats.The American foreign policy establishment seems to have lost the ability to just talk to other nations, never mind understanding them.

VI: The other side of humility is of course hubris. Many point this out when talking about the United States - that we have an attitude that it's the American way or the highway. So let’s segue into a contemporary manifestation of this. You have just spent time in Ukraine and written about the situation there. You state that the United States has continually gotten it wrong in dealing with Ukraine, that American involvement complicates the situation because they don't understand the complex dynamics in the region. 

Nicolai Petro: My view is actually more complex. I think Ukraine is a nested problem in which there is an international component—the rivalry between the United States and Russia. Within that there is the problem of bilateral relations between Ukraine and Russia, which has failed to evolve in a healthy way since Ukrainian independence in 1991. And there is also the internal problem of Ukraine, which has not yet granted full civic recognition to the Russophone population in the East and South of Ukraine, who constitute at least 40% of the total population.

The Ukrainian problem is so severely misunderstood in the West because of those three components.The core issue is lack of an internal settlement. If Ukrainians weren't disagreeing so vehemently amongst themselves, they wouldn't be the object of contention that they are between Russia and the United States, as its competing constituencies could not be played so easily against each other. Ukraine will remain vulnerable to external manipulation for as long as its internal factions refuse to engage in a healing dialogue. 

To heal, Ukranians must find a way to institutionalize the fact that Ukraine is a bicultural society. Ukrainian nationalism, from its inception in the 19th Century, has opposed this, but without such a catharsis, which must come from within Ukrainian society, I am afraid that there is nothing that any external party can do that would result in lasting social harmony.

VI: So there should be no acceptance of autonomy within Ukraine, but to actually come under Russian influence and protection as we saw in Crimea?

Nicolai Petro: The Minsk process has been rejected by the Ukrainian government because it is about autonomy for Donbass. On the rebel side, it has been rejected because of the draconian measure being proposed by Ukrainian officials, things like 25 years of restricted civil and political rights until the “confusion in their heads,'' as Ukranian deputy premier Alexei Reznov puts it, is replaced by correct thoughts.

This is so obviously a dead end, that I'm amazed it continues. I can understand why the United States goes along with this charade, because its policy in the region is not about helping Ukraine, but about containing Russia. For Europe it seems remarkably short-sighted. It seems that all sides in the Minsk process are locked in a process that they no longer have any control over, but the first one to acknowledge this publicly is going to be the scapegoat.

We need to consider a broader context. There really is no alternative but to consider all of the constituencies I mentioned previously—international, bilateral, and domestic—at the same time in the context of a new international settlement. What is required is a new Treaty of Westphalia, the gist of which would be: Russia and the US step back, Russia and Ukraine step back, everybody stipulates that Ukraine and Russia will be part of a new pan-European security framework. That might provide enough of an incentive for Russia to deal creatively with Donbass, and perhaps even Crimea.

VI: Do you see the European Union playing the role here of trying to orchestrate this Westphalian idea?

Nicolai Petro: The EU would have to find a single voice and be engaged so that makes it clear that this is the way they would like to see Europe develop.There has to be a European-wide framework for Russia and Ukraine to join. The tricky part, I suspect, would be convincing the neocons in the United States to accept such a settlement, since peace in Europe would inevitably rekindle arguments about the need for NATO. 

VI: What you're talking about will require very skillful diplomatic efforts coming out of the European Union. Is that possible? Is there that capability coming out of Brussels, coming out of Berlin, out of Paris?

Nicolai Petro: Institutionally, no; individually, yes. I can think of a half dozen retired, European diplomats who could get this done, but institutionally there would be too much interference, too much static.  I'd like to think that the EU could designate a special committee to work without the traditional institutional constraints, until they could come up with an agreement. That way when critics say, "Oh no, we can't possibly do that," they could respond, "Do you have anything better? No? Then it is this, or war.” Who's going to stand up for war? 

VI: Nicolai, unfortunately we have come to the end of our time. We've had an interesting conversation on Russian ideas of spiritual values and moral authority, spheres of influence, and geopolitical competition. There is much more we could delve into that would be of interest to our readers. We are including links to articles that can provide more background.

We can certainly conclude that we are dealing with complex realities. Russia is a complex country that plays a significant role in the world and we need to try to understand it for what it is rather than what our prejudice tells us it is, should be, or has been. That's the biggest problem these days - clarity of thought and understanding of the world unclouded by false perceptions. 

Nicolai Petro: Words to live by. Thank you for this opportunity to participate in the Vital Interest forum.

Nicolai N. Petro teaches comparative and international politics at the University of Rhode Island, where he previously held the Silvia-Chandley Professorship of Peace Studies and Nonviolence. He is currently on leave as a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies at the University of Bologna, Italy. He is the recipient of two Fulbright awards (one to Russia and one to Ukraine), as well as fellowships from the National Council for Eurasian and East European Research, the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies in Washington, D.C., and the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. As a Council on Foreign Relations Fellow he served as special assistant for policy toward the Soviet Union in the U.S. Department of State from 1989 to 1990. In addition to his scholarly publications on Russia and Ukraine, he has also written for Asia Times, American Interest, Boston Globe, Christian Science Monitor, The Guardian (UK), The Nation, The National Interest, New York Times, and Wilson Quarterly.