Supporting the War in Ukraine Compared to the Annexation of Crimea in Russia’s Bureaucratic Texts

Abstract

What can be said about the nature of support for Putin’s policies toward Ukraine in Russia’s bureaucracy? Despite the extensive repression making assessment of the actual nature of the support challenging especially after the 2022 invasion, the instrumental support related to material interests of subordinates is still central in Putin’s patronal system. However, along with radicalization of Putin’s policies, a more normative support can be expected besides material benefits the bureaucracy receives. This article makes an empirical contribution to the issue by analyzing the relationship between instrumental and normative support for the war in Ukraine, using texts of Russia’s bureaucracy from the Integrum database and comparing them to texts following Crimea’s annexation in the same database. Based on various quantitative indicators and the selected qualitative analysis of the texts, it is argued that there is less normative support for the ongoing war of aggression in Russia’s bureaucracy than in the case of Crimea’s annexation. In this regard, the regime’s persuasion costs with the current war for Russia’s bureaucracy remain high because the radicalization of the Kremlin’s foreign policy since 2014 has not manifested itself as clear normative support for this radicalization.