Punishing ordinary Russians plays into Putin’s hands

A few days ago the Irish bank I’ve been with for 15 years sent me a letter instructing me to produce proof of valid European Union residency or face having a limit of €100,000 put on my account. Any excess to the limit would result in an immediate block on my funds.

It was, the letter said, part of the ongoing measures implemented by the EU against Russian and Belarusian nationals. And despite having worked and paid taxes here almost uninterruptedly from the moment I graduated – with my bank having full knowledge of this – I had been shoehorned me into a motley list of money launderers based entirely on my place of birth.

Russian citizens have been under scrutiny due to the ongoing rift between Russia’s government and Europe. For those living in Russia, the borders have been effectively closed, leaving them with little possibility of escaping Vladimir Putin’s regime, unless they are fortunate enough to be in possession of a dual citizenship – a privilege that most ordinary citizens find themselves to be without.

The prevailing thinking in the West seems to increasingly be that ordinary Russians are complicit in the destruction taking place in Ukraine, and their wholesale punishment is an appropriate countermeasure to the hostile actions being taken by Putin.

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This plays into Putin’s hands as his propaganda relies on the adverse treatment of Russian people by a reactionary West: it legitimises his long-term claims of pan-European Russophobia that already gnaw away at the insecure fibres of Russian self-identity – particularly in those with experience of the turmoil that followed the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Their anxiety is something that I am no stranger to. My interactions with middle-aged relatives back home have often deviated into questions about the level of discrimination I face as a Russian living in Europe. It is something that had been cropping up long before the recent quandary in Ukraine. Negative answers would only be met with surprise and disbelief. This generation’s views about a Russophobic West have already been deep set.

For this generation, the punishments imposed by the West pale in comparison to those that they have experienced and will continue to do so at the hands of their own government. But a universal tendency narrows the matter down to one poignant aphorism: the devil you know is much better than the devil you don’t.

Measures taken by the EU towards Russians living inside its borders have demonstrated that the bloc is continuing to treat the ordinary Russian as criminals until proven otherwise

The Soviet-born middle-aged are a distinct side in this convoluted ideological chasm due to their interpretation of history; but there is another side. They may have been susceptible to the massaged narratives disgorged by the Kremlin, but their successors have been nothing short of the opposite.

Using YouTube and Telegram, the young, millennial Russians have expressed constant outrage at their government’s actions. Amassing sizeable followings on social media, they have mobilised in endless street protests, online petitions and rebuttals of the Kremlin’s slanted rhetoric.

The reason for this? Young Russians have grown up with much closer ties to the western world than their parents had. The fall of the Iron Curtain facilitated cross-European travel and allowed Russians to study abroad, thereby absorbing European culture and (most importantly) forging human connections with its people. This has facilitated ties that lie at the root of their resistance to the idea of an enemy in the West – or, indeed, the idea of an enemy in Ukraine.

The proof is evident: not long after the launch of Putin’s ‘special military operation’, accounts from army dissidents started to emerge refuting the government’s narratives with personal, first-hand experiences of brutality and marauding on the front lines. To this day, reports of Russians trying to break the stronghold of Putin’s regime in some unique but vain way emerge, all in spite of the dangers that this poses in the increasingly autocratic confines of today’s Russia.

All this trounces Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s claims that Russian people are “not fighting” their government, “arguing” with it or “shouting”. And yet, despite this, measures taken by the EU towards Russians living inside its borders have demonstrated that the bloc is continuing to treat the ordinary Russian as criminals until proven otherwise.

The Irish banks’ latest handover of Russian customer dealings to its money-laundering investigation unit is the latest example.

On the other hand, those Russians who are in a position to influence the Russian siloviki (strongmen) – whether through their personal fortunes or their role in the political establishment – will retain ‘privileged’ access to the West since their families have already secured access through dual nationalities and schemes such as long-term residency permits, or EU ‘golden passports’.

It should be reiterated that the removal of Putin’s government will come only from the unity between Russian and European peoples. By segregating itself from Russian civil society, the West will only recultivate the prejudices that started this war. And, tragically, it will sever the connection with a generation of Russians sympathetic to the European cause, in whom lies the hope for a future, post-Putin Russia.

Arthur Velker is a Dublin-based Russian writer and journalist