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Hello, my name is Ksenia Krimer, I am a Holocaust historian and English translator. And I have also been researching for many years how wars and totalitarian regimes affect a person: their self-awareness and behavior.
It has been one hundred days since Russia invaded Ukraine. However frightening it may be to realize, many have already grown accustomed to the war and it has become the background of our lives. We have become used to news feeds filled with reports of military action, as well as the changes that have occurred in our lives, including sanctions and uncertainty.
But it is impossible to get used to the testimonies of the atrocities committed by the Russian army: mass murders, rapes, and tortures of civilians. The scale of these atrocities can be judged by what happened in Bucha, Irpen, Bohdanivka, and Borodyanka. This is, of course, not all – we will see the full picture only when the war is over.
The terrorism of civilians in Ukraine has become a real shock. How is this even possible? After all, the people who are now killing and raping were among us all this time. Are they completely different, not like us? And if so, were they always like that? Or did the war make them cruel?
In the text you are about to read, I will try to explain why Russian military commit all these atrocities. There is an explanation, although it cannot be called short or simple. The level of violence that we observe during these 100 long days is not an anomaly or a product of this specific war. This violence is lawful.
In April 1967, the tenth-grade students of the American high school in Elwood Kabblerle in Palo Alto began studying World War II. Teacher Ron Jones proposed an experiment to the teenagers, which later became known as “The Third Wave.”
The teacher’s plan was to spend a week in the conditions of a harsh dictatorship similar to that of Nazi Germany and try to understand what motivated people at that time.
Jones gave a lecture to the students about discipline, “one of the characteristic features of life in Nazi Germany.” In order to feel “the power of discipline” themselves, teenagers had to perform exercises (e.g. going into the “attention” position in fifteen seconds). In addition, students had to start any of their answers with the phrase “Mr. Jones”, speak quickly and clearly. Strict compliance with the requirements was encouraged, while slowness and apathy were condemned.
Jones introduced a special greeting that was only understood by the “experimental” class: when they met, all students had to press their bent right hand to their right shoulder. Thus, the experiment quickly became something like a secret order for its participants, and by the end of the third day, more than two hundred children had joined it.
Then the teacher asked three teenagers to monitor discipline themselves, reporting violations to him – on the same day, almost twenty students came to Jones with reports on their own initiative. And on the fourth day, he announced that “The Third Wave” was not just an experiment; allegedly, hundreds of branches of the movement had already been created in other regions of the country, which “will be able to change the fate of the people.” At this same meeting, Jones appointed several escorts: they escorted out of the room where almost 80 children had gathered, all those who doubted the significance of “The Third Wave.”
As a result, the line between the game and the real dictatorship in a particular school simply disappeared. Jones noted that he began to “instinctively act like a dictator.” On the fifth day, he stopped the experiment, explaining to the children how easily they succumb to manipulation. And he showed that their behavior did not differ much from the behavior of ordinary citizens in Nazi Germany.
The experiment was heavily criticized afterwards as it was not conducted according to scientific standards and therefore has no research or historical value. In addition, Jones was also criticized from a pedagogical and ethical perspective: is it permissible to conduct such experiments on children, or on people in general?
And yet “The Third Wave” can help to understand the essence of dictatorships, which is why the experiment has become almost cult-like. Several books were later written about it (including by Jones himself) and several films were made.
There are also other experiments whose authors have tried to explain the behavior of “ordinary Germans” and find out how far a person can go if some authority requires them to do something beyond ethical boundaries. One should remember the Stanley Milgram obedience experiment, in which participants electrocuted people simply because they were told to do so. Or the famous Stanford prison experiment, in which people assigned to the role of “guards” tormented those who played the role of “prisoners”.
The data obtained as a result of these experiments prove the widespread thesis of the “banality of evil”. According to it, under conditions of dictatorship, people are willing to blindly follow instructions and commit atrocities because their ethical beliefs are suppressed by an external force and dissolve into collective action. Therefore, collective terror is a consequence of human desire for conformity and obedience. That is, the desire to be perceived as good and “normal” within the framework of the given rules is much stronger than the desire to be merciful and humane.
This is a scary, but at the same time slightly calming conclusion. It easily leads to the thought that a person who commits atrocities seems to not take responsibility for their actions.
Can we apply this conclusion to what is happening now in Ukraine and be content? Unlikely. We do not know if there were military orders that pushed Russian soldiers to commit marauding, torture, and rape. Rather, we are talking about the implicit encouragement of such behavior, about impunity – but not about orders. Therefore, it seems that theories of social psychologists and philosophers are unable to explain the atrocities that we have learned about in the past 100 days.
What can explain all this then?
We are literally learning violence – and here’s how it happens
Violence permeates all spheres of “peaceful” Russian life. Women encounter it in maternity departments and families, children in orphanages, sports clubs, and schools. Patients of tuberculosis hospitals and nursing homes suffer from it. It inevitably meets a person who finds themselves in a police station or colony.
Usually, this violence remains unpunished – and domestic violence was even decriminalized several years ago. Moreover, the system often punishes even for attempts at self-defense: according to statistics, four out of five women (79%) convicted of intentional homicide in 2016-2018 defended themselves in this way against domestic violence from their partners.
People surrounded by violence inevitably begin to perceive it as a social norm. This is described, in particular, by the theory of social learning – proposed by Canadian-American psychologist Albert Bandura. He conducted another famous experiment – with the Bobo doll.
During the experiment, two groups of children were given to play with a doll named Bobo – but only after they learned what adults do with this doll. Children in the first group observed adults playing with the doll – and imitated them. Others saw adults hitting the doll – and tormented the toy themselves.
In other words, a person adopts violent methods, literally learns to use them. The model of American criminologist Lonnie Athens, the author of the theory of “violent socialization” (or “violenization”), demonstrates well how this “education” takes place. This socialization consists of four stages, each of which prepares any mentally healthy person for the commission of violence.
“Brutalization” or cruelty
At this stage, a person learns that violence is a way of communication and problem-solving. To do this, one must go through three stages.
Forced suppression occurs when a person – often a child – experiences violence from a significant adult or peer group (for example, in a situation of school bullying).
Personal horror is experienced by someone who witnesses violence towards someone very close. For example, when a child sees their father hitting their mother. This experience is even more traumatic than the experience of violent suppression, because fear and humiliation are mixed with shame for the inability to intervene.
Teaching cruelty happens through phrases like “Just give in!” and “Solve your problems on your own, don’t be a wimp.” The child believes that the person giving such advice is an authoritative adult and is capable of cruelty themselves.
Aggressive militancy
A person begins to ask themselves, “What can I do so that no one can do anything bad to me and my loved ones?” They return to the lessons learned in the previous stage: one must behave as aggressively as possible. And they start acting this way.
Cruel behavior
The circle of potential victims of aggression is expanding. From threats, a person moves on to fists, from fists to a knife or even something more serious.
Virulence
Violence becomes a full-fledged language of communication with the world for a person. It is used reflexively, an external irritant is not necessary for it. Violence is no longer a means of protection, but a way of preventive intimidation. Thus, by terrorizing others, he compensates for his own humiliation and powerlessness that he experienced in the past.
The Etensa model is quite versatile. It can be used both for analyzing human behavior in normal peaceful life and for investigating military crimes during combat operations.
Violence in the Russian army is still a systemic problem. It is not being solved, but rather concealed
It is easy to draw parallels between the stages of “socialization into violence” and the stages of military preparation. The goal of such preparation is to fix future soldiers at the third stage (“Cruel behavior”), when mechanisms of self-regulation and self-preservation are still working.
Soldiers should not become aggressors ready for unjustified blind cruelty. To prevent this from happening, NATO armies, for example, have “safeguards”. The first such “safeguard” is military law, which defines the rules for conducting combat operations, outlining the boundaries of permissible violence.
However, the presence of rules alone does not guarantee their implementation. Therefore, discipline is introduced at the level of group norms in Western armies. Courses in military ethics are one of the mandatory stages of military training in armies not only of NATO countries, but also, for example, Israel.
The role of officers and senior command personnel is also very important: they must limit violence both in combat situations and in barracks. Cruelty in the barracks is not only hazing, but also drill, which is why the US military uses “non-punitive methods” to work with servicemen. We are talking about a phased system of psychological and professional counseling, reprimands, and instructions for those military personnel who violate discipline. That is, before punishing a person, they first try to negotiate with him.
What about the Russian army? The official position of the authorities is that the country’s armed forces have been cleansed of hazing, violence, and informal relationships. In 2017, President Vladimir Putin stated that “there were times not so long ago that did not do honor to the army, such as hazing and so on. There is nothing good about it. Now, to a significant extent, it is a thing of the past.” Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu agrees, stating that “there is simply no ground for hazing in the army now.”
The Ministry of Defense believes that hazing has been eradicated solely by the 2008 reform, which reduced military service from two years to one. Human rights activists acknowledge that the number of hazing cases in the military has indeed decreased, but the problem has not been fully resolved as the authorities claim.
Overall, it is very difficult to assess the real level of hazing. The Russian Armed Forces are a closed structure that is not subject to public scrutiny. The military leadership even restricts access to non-secret information and consistently hides cases of injuries, killings, or suicides among military personnel during peacetime. And the losses of personnel of the Ministry of Defense “during special operations” were declared a state secret by a presidential decree in 2015.
At the same time, information about violence in the army still regularly makes it into the media. And thanks to this, it is obvious that hazing and other displays of systemic cruelty are still commonplace. Which, in general, is not surprising. One reduction in service time cannot solve such a complex problem, the system needs to be changed.
The system is such that the command of the Russian army, like the management regime of the country as a whole, is based on authoritarianism and centralized decision making at the very top. Sergeants and lieutenants do not have such powers, their entire task is to ensure the execution of orders. It is precisely unconditional obedience, rather than discipline, that is the main organizing principle in the Russian army.
Discipline, or devotion to rules, does not imply following the senior or strongest person regardless of circumstances. It requires awareness and transparent norms for everyone, regardless of rank. Therefore, in the armies of Israel, Germany, or the United States, the leadership insists on accountability to society, and soldiers are given the right to sabotage an unlawful order. At the same time, obedience, or blind obedience to authority cannot exist in conditions where the rules are clear and transparent. It requires the extreme degree of obedience, and it is achieved by breaking and depersonalizing people. Therefore, a soldier in the Russian army is obliged to fulfill any even criminal order under the threat of a trial.
“The right of the commander (chief) to give orders and the obligation of the subordinate to unquestionably obey are the fundamental principles of unity of command. In case of open disobedience or resistance by the subordinate, the commander (chief) is obliged to take all measures established by the laws of the Russian Federation and the general military regulations to restore order and military discipline.”
Disciplinary Regulations of the Armed Forces of Russia.
In short, the Russian army simply does not set the task of educating people who know their rights and value the rights of others. Instead of courses on military ethics, emphasis is placed on patriotic education of future soldiers and officers – through loyalty to the Motherland and oath, “unconditional obedience” and the recently revived institution of political officers.
At the same time, the Armed Forces of Russia consistently strive for victory at any cost. This is precisely why the absolute majority of military crimes in Russia go uninvestigated. What military crimes can we talk about if there is no price that the country is not willing to pay for victory? There is no such price, so there is no punishment – and therefore, no crimes either.
Today in Ukraine, there are many who are used to complete impunity in warfare: these are the fighters of the Russian National Guard, Kadyrov’s men, and Wagner mercenaries. Their faces are always hidden under a “fogged helmet“: the authorities never surrender them to justice, protect them in every way possible and even openly encourage them at the highest level. In April, Vladimir Putin bestowed an honorary title of “Guards” on the 64th separate motorized rifle brigade, suspected of committing war crimes in Bucha. The presidential decree states that “the personnel of the brigade displayed mass heroism, courage, steadfastness, and bravery in combat operations to defend the Motherland and state interests in conditions of armed conflicts.”
It’s not just about one army. We hear the language of violence every day (and speak it)
Leon Trotsky wrote: “The army represents a material, sharply defined and indisputable reflection of the state. Being an accurate copy of society, the army is “afflicted” with the same diseases, usually with a higher temperature.”
So what “plagues” of Russian society made it possible for war crimes to occur in Ukraine? And most importantly, where did these “plagues” come from?
One of the main incubators of Russian violence is undoubtedly the Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN), the direct successor to the Gulag.
Russia continues to lead Europe in the total number of prisoners, despite a gradual decrease in the prison population. As of 2022, there were 466,000 people in Russian prisons, and 63% of them were repeat offenders. The mortality rate in Russian prisons is high, with 47 deaths per 10,000 people (compared to an average of 27 cases in Europe), which speaks to poor conditions, a high suicide rate, limited access to medical care, and torture.
When remembering the times of Stalinist terror, people often say: “In the USSR, half of the country was sitting in jail, and the other half was guarding them.” Statistically, this does not correspond to reality. But it accurately reflects the prevalence of imprisonment experience in the country.
This experience remains very common even today. In 2008, retired Deputy Supreme Court Chairman Vladimir Radchenko calculated that between 1992 and 2007, over 15 million people in Russia were convicted – nearly one in ten Russians, or about a quarter of the adult male population. And 18.2% of the country’s citizens have a criminal record, every sixth person, including infants.
Prison culture is tightly woven into Russian life. Here you have the “blat” vocabulary, which has long been part of our language, and the popularity of chanson music, which extends far beyond the criminal environment. There is nothing surprising about such a close interweaving of criminal and “normative” culture, since life in a Russian prison and “on the outside” are also closely intertwined.
This mutual penetration is reflected in the legalization of crime, which was not defeated during the “Putin stability” period, as the authors of the myth of the “wild nineties” like to claim. At the end of the Yeltsin period, representatives of criminal groups, connected with business, special services and law enforcement agencies, entered politics and were elected as mayors and deputies. In the Putin period, the state itself turned into a criminal group: violence was removed from the streets, but now the police actively use it.
Having legalized themselves in the authorities, former bandits brought their life philosophy into the public sphere: cynicism, cult of power, greed, conviction in the corruptibility of all around, readiness for violence. And also – the prison “thieves’ language”. It is spoken by the president, prime minister, State Duma deputies, members of the Federation Council, heads of cities and regions.
Putin has never been shy to use phrases like “beat in the toilet”, “wipe bloody snot”, “like it or not – tolerate, my beauty”. His speech, like the rhetoric of Russian diplomacy, is hardly distinguishable from the language of the underworld. And this is not just words – such language promotes a cult of strength, denies democratic principles of respecting the rights of others. It normalizes violence – sexual, physical, psychological – as the only way to convey one’s position and rightness.
Historian and anthropologist Tatiana Schevskaya, who has studied the communicative function of physical violence, provides several examples of how the same word in the Russian language can simultaneously denote both a form of communication and a form of physical impact. For example, “стучать” can mean both to relate and to knock, “стрелять” can mean both to ask and to shoot, and “въехать” can mean both to understand and to drive in.
She cites some proverbs: “There is no stick, but it will give wisdom”, “To beat for the sake of the case – to teach wisdom”, “They do not beat, but give wisdom”, “They beat not for torment, but for learning”. In all these phrases, violence is presented as a means of education, a way to explain something. It is indicative that in his speech two days before the invasion of Ukraine, Putin literally announced his intention to “explain” to Ukraine the “correct” version of history: “We are ready to show you what real de-communization means for Ukraine”.
“Teaching” violence in Russia often becomes a mandatory part of initiation and a way of passing on values and norms. Therefore, it is not surprising that military hazing resembles punishment in Russian prisons. And participation in group violence strengthens the army community as well as it strengthens the criminal community.
Externally, criminal culture has a collectivist character. But in essence, it is very individualistic, because it rejects ideas of innate equality and horizontal solidarity. It does not teach empathy and trust (“Do not trust, do not fear, do not ask”), and on a lower level is permeated with a sense of dependence and powerlessness.
Often, criminal culture opposes itself to “normative” culture as more genuine and emotional. Supposedly, it is based on authentic justice, rather than heartless law and artificial rules. One can easily notice the similarity with conservative anti-Western discourse, in which the Russian “special path” and true “traditional” values are opposed to allegedly hypocritical and heartless Western society.
And what is also very characteristic of the criminal culture is the blurring of boundaries between private and public, one’s own and someone else’s. “The Russian exists as if in nobody’s, nobody’s world, and he wants to seize him,” wrote sociologist Boris Dubin in 2014, summing up the annexation of Crimea. – “Or one has to suffer from the fact that he did not succeed, did not gather the courage to do this. Either capture or irritation, longing, suffering from the fact that you want to capture, but it is impossible.”
The lack of interest in others as individuals, denial of equality and boundaries of property and personality, understanding any differences hierarchically (weaker/stronger, poorer/richer, lower status/higher status) – all of this in conditions of prolonged non-freedom and social disunity breeds aggression and envy at the level of the entire society.
As a result, it manifested itself in murders, torture, rape, and mass looting in Ukraine.
Society is indifferent to violence. And this indifference is a formed habit
So, the Russian army is currently exporting to Ukraine the violence that permeates the entire life of the country. The Russians themselves are no longer able to resist violence – and one of the reasons for this is the total collapse of the ethical system.
In order for a person to behave ethically and civilized, norms of such behavior should not only be established on a state-legal level or in religion. They should be supported by the social system itself and become an informal consensus.
But in Russian society over the past decades, there has been no one and nothing with sufficient authority and independence from state institutions that could set moral coordinates. Throughout Putin’s rule, the government has systematically destroyed horizontal social ties, the beginnings of civil self-organization, and public institutions, undermining them for its own purposes.
This process is reinforced by the destruction of the reputation of cultural and scientific figures – the regime actively hires them to serve its own interests. Actors and directors serve as “trusted persons” of the president, the corrupt academic environment with its dominance of “paid dissertations” and “petrik academics” – all of this undermines the very concept of moral, cultural, or scientific authority. At the same time, any political protest is consistently discredited as mercenary.
In the conditions of degradation of institutions, authorities, and values, society loses moral guidelines and the ability for complex reflection. It starts perceiving cynicism, mercantilism, and selfishness as a norm. The dogma “Every man for himself” instead of solidarity and social empathy makes society extremely amorphous and indifferent.
This society paradoxically combines feelings of narcissism and humiliation, indifference to others and a desire to achieve justice and respect from them.
At the same time, it does not want to fight for justice, is not ready to show respect to anyone. And if you reduce the self-perception of such a society to a simple phrase, it will be something like: “You cannot trust anyone, the world is unfair. That’s why I can behave as I please, I have the right to everything.”
When the war ends, thousands of Russian servicemen will return to this society – including those who committed war crimes in Ukraine. No one will investigate these crimes in Russia, at least under the current regime.
As no one was dealing with and preventing them, it would have helped to reduce the level of violence that soldiers bring into their families after the war. Research conducted in Western societies (such as the United States and Britain) convincingly demonstrates that families of combat veterans have a much higher level of violence against partners and children than the national average. And also – significantly higher levels of suicides, depression, alcoholism and PTSD.
Soviet and post-Soviet society has already faced all these problems – after the Second World War, the war in Afghanistan, and the wars in Chechnya. Obviously, after the end of the war in Ukraine, Russian society is expecting a new surge of violence.
And yet this society is so permeated with violence from top to bottom.
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