In 2016, Brandt Corstius made Grensland, a television series in which he travelled through Russia and its neighboring countries. During his lecture, he uses that series to try and explain Russia’s reasons for invading Ukraine. The speaker’s popularity is evident: the Corona hall is sold out and he needs to answer a range of audience questions.

Putin is quite a moderate

“Many people hope that Putin will soon be out of power. But I wouldn’t be too happy when he leaves.” Some people seem surprised by that statement. “What will we get in return after he’s gone? Perhaps someone much worse than him. Putin is something of a moderate. Believe me, he’s by no means the worst person in Russia. And when he leaves, will there be a revolution? Will he once again burn the archives, as he did in Dresden in 1989, when he was stationed there? Russia is totally unpredictable.”

Slightly different history books

Most people will probably understand that Russia and the west have fundamentally different ideas about the annexation of Crimea by Russian soldiers in 2014. But many people aren’t quite sure why that is, and the media are often blamed. Brandt Corstius tries to nuance this: “Yes, the venom of Russia’s state television gets in people’s bloodstream. The people who invaded Crimea were referred to as ‘polite people’ by Russian media. They even wrote a song about it that was performed by the army choir. That’s not how we generally view Russian soldiers,” he says wryly.

“But after the collapse of the Soviet Union, today’s Russia is really ‘that which was left.’ Other countries, such as the Baltic States, became independent. That’s entirely different from what happened to Russia after the collapse. And that led to a certain sentiment. Similarly, many former Soviet countries had a fundamentally different perception of Germany, which was hailed as a liberator in 1941. This is difficult for us westerners to understand. But to them, the Germans came to liberate them from Soviet occupation. Under Stalin, the Soviet Union starved Ukrainians, but Russian history books refer to him as an ‘effective manager.’ Russia now uses Ukraine’s gratitude for the arrival of the Germans in the 1940s to justify their ‘denazification’ of Ukraine. Something similar happens in Latvia, where they hold an annual (!) parade in Riga of former SS officers who fought the Soviets.” Brandt Corstius then shows a fragment in which Russians use a bucket and a mop to ‘disinfect’ and cleanse an area from Nazis. “This is widely reported by the Russian media every year,” he says.

Those who are familiar with Brandt Corstius and his work will know how calm he remains when he interviews people, even if they say the most controversial or offensive things. Someone in the audience wants to know how he manages this. “Sometimes it’s hard, especially when they use contradictive arguments to make their point. But I think that you can get more out of people when you take a neutral stance. I believe that many journalists have an idea beforehand of ‘what they want to hear.’ That doesn’t mean that it’s easy to remain neutral. Just as it was difficult for us in the Netherlands to write neutrally about the Germans during the second world war.”

Underestimating the impact

“We underestimate the impact of the collapse of the Soviet Union on the Russian people,” Brandt Corstius says. He cites a striking example to illustrate his point: “I lived in Russia for some time, and my girlfriend shared an apartment with other people at the time, a bit like a student house. I had accidentally broken the lock during one of my visits, and it had to be repaired. As it turned out, there was a locksmith living on the floor above, and he spent hours helping us fix it. Russian doors are like fortresses, you don’t just open them. Afterwards, I wanted to pay him, but he was deeply offended. ‘I’m from the Soviet Union,’ he said. ‘We help each other,’ and then he launched into a rant about the awful capitalism in the west. Many people who lived during the Soviet era feel nostalgia for that period, and they believe that people were much kinder to one another back then. Many Russians think of the fall of the Berlin wall as a battle that was lost by Russia. And the invasion of Ukraine as an opportunity to put matters straight. But the question becomes: where will it end? Which country is next in line to restore the former glory of the Soviet Union?”

The west remained silent for years

“In 2008, the Medvedev doctrine came into effect. This meant, in a nutshell, that every Russian needs to be protected. Back then already, the former Soviet countries sounded the alarm. But the west remained silent, its commercial interests were too large. That allowed Putin to do as he pleased, which brings us to 2014, the year he annexed Crimea. That same year, a revolution broke out in Ukraine, which left 108 people dead and caused then president Yanukovych to flee the country. In that chaos, Putin made plans to annex Crimea, and he occupied the Donbas region to protect Russians. And he always has the support of the Russian media, which have been under the control of the Kremlin since 2002. Four in five Russians get their information from these news outlets. It’s important to Putin that Russia or the former Soviet Union countries fail to become democracies, because that would set a dangerous precedent. People need to continue to believe that the country can only be governed by one strong man.”

Small leader, large damage

Even though Putin has set in motion large events globally, he’s quite small apparently. Brandt Corstius would know, because he met the man on two occasions. “I actually had to bend forward somewhat to shake his hand,” he says, as he reenacts his bow for the audience. “Russian television networks use all kinds of tricks to make him seem taller, but he’s really very small.” Brandt Corstius hasn’t lost his sense of humor, even though he went through some serious ordeals during his travels. Someone asks him whether he ever felt afraid. He says no, but at the same time remembers a few occasions that were quite out of the ordinary. “I wouldn’t say that I was afraid. Well, I did get clubbed once during a protest. And there was that time when we were making a documentary about the Russian army and went for a drink afterwards, only to find out that people had visited our hotel rooms in the meantime and destroyed our video footage. Including the back-up footage we had stored on our computer, just to be safe. These were professionals who knew what they were doing. And the obstruction, authorities that continuously wanted to know what we were doing. All in all, quite a lot of suppression really.”

Mothers are our only hope

Does Brandt Corstius still feel hopeful that this war will end? He has a very specific hope: “The Committee of Soldier’s Mothers, founded in the year the Berlin wall came down and inspired by the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina. These mothers could very well cause some successful protests. Putin can get away with much, but clubbing concerned mothers is something even he can’t do.” Brandt Corstius visited one of these committees once in Ukraine. He shows some video footage of his visit. “The women are the ones who are not afraid to be critical in Russia. The men are taught in the army that you’re not supposed to be critical, that it’s impossible to make a difference as an individual. Perhaps this committee will prove that this is not always true.”

What will happen next? Will the recent mobilization lead to a victory for Putin? “There are two sides to the mobilization: the goofy videos that leaked of a blind man who is called to serve in the army, for example. It’s easy to say, ‘the Russians will never win.’ But you also need to realize that there are things you don’t see: trucks crammed with fully equipped soldiers ready to fight. I myself feel very anxious, but it’s too early to make any kind of successful prediction.”

Would you like to learn more about this topic? Jelle Brandt Corstius also made the podcast series ‘Before the bomb falls.’