“Eat or be eaten”

2026/37 | topic | The Russian socialists Ilya Matveev and Ilya Budraitskis in conversation about the ideological driving forces of the Russian war

Why does Russia wage war, even if it harms Russian capital interests? Why is the state sacrificing trillions of rubles and hundreds of thousands of lives in an attempt to subjugate Ukraine? Russian socialists Ilya Matveev and Ilya Budraitskis identify the ideologization of the Russian ruling class as the central driving force of militarism. The "Jungle World" spoke to them about the roots of Vladimir Putin's worldview in the paranoia of the KGB and the predatory capitalism of the 1990s and about what would be necessary for Russia to no longer pose a threat to its neighboring countries.

Katya Voronina