Russia’s Cultural War Is Revealing a Deeper Crisis Inside the Country

Today, let's talk about a different subject. Recently, a new family film was released in Russian cinemas, which was made as part of the country's recent patriotic agenda.

The main character of this story is a school student named 'Ivan'. Ivan is shown as irresponsible, crazy about modern gadgets, and caught in the grip of Western comics.

According to the story, until he enters a magical box, he remains cut off from his roots.

As soon as he enters that box, he finds himself in the world of traditional Russian folk tales, culture, and Orthodox moral values.

After this, he is reborn and becomes an ideal Russian citizen, free from Western distortions.

The aim of the film was direct and clear: to turn Russian youth away from American and Western cultural influence and toward traditional Russian consciousness.

But the real reality on the ground behind this grand ideological message was being revealed in the silence of the cinema halls.

Hundreds of empty chairs in the theatre bore witness to the fact that a very deep gap had been created between the projects being created at the government level to shape the public mind and the real interests of ordinary people.

A well-known Russian media personality, Dmitry Puchov (also known as 'Goblin'), presented this cultural conflict in very sharp words in an interview given to the Russian newspaper 'Argumenty'.

Goblin argued that Western superheroes are destroying the mentality of Russian children. He said:

"If you notice who is raising your children, you will find that Western characters like Batman, Spider-Man, and the Avengers are raising them.

From the minds of our children, the hero of the Russian Civil War, Vasily Ivanovich Chapayev, has disappeared.

There is no place for the great commander of the Second World War, Marshal Zhukov.

Even Grandpa Lenin has been forgotten. Americans are raising our children because our education system has allowed this to happen."

But has common Russian society really become free from Hollywood and Western culture?

To find the answer to this question, when the latest 'Spider-Man' film was searched for in Moscow, the picture turned out to be completely the opposite.

Due to strict sanctions imposed on Russia and the Ukraine conflict, Western film studios do not officially release their films in Russia.

These films have no official screening licence or distribution network. Even so, a secret game ('cloak and dagger') of watching Hollywood blockbusters continues unabated in Moscow's cinemas.

Cinema lovers officially buy tickets for a local short Russian film or cartoon. Spider-Man's name is not on the ticket.

Viewers go inside the hall, and under the guise of so-called 'pre-screening entertainment' (the feature shown before the main show), the full Hollywood film is shown on the screen from an unofficial print.

The surprising thing was that while there was only one viewer at the showing of the patriotism-laden film 'Ivan,' at the same time, on the same weekday evening, at least 40 people were passing through the ticket window to watch the unofficial 'Spider-Man.'

On the day when Russian newspapers were calling Western heroes 'despicable' and glorifying folk tales, a very frank interview with the country's famous and respected filmmaker, Alexander Sokurov, was published in another Russian newspaper.

At the age of 75, Sokurov openly criticised the repressive system of Russian power, cultural censorship, and the controversial 'foreign agent law' — and that too, directly in front of President Vladimir Putin.

The main headline of Sokurov's interview was: "If we have to survive in this complex world, we have to be free."

Sharing his pain, Sokurov said that his fate has returned to the same old turning point as the dark period of the Soviet era. He recalled:

"Even in the Soviet period, my films were banned, and the same is happening today. Years ago, I told Boris Yeltsin that all this would return one day, but I believed that it would happen after my lifetime. Today, I am 75 years old.

My motherland has become stone-hearted. I am too Russian to remain indifferent toward my people and my fatherland. I am not a prophet, but I had already sensed what was coming."

Sokurov further said that Russia faces no real threat from NATO; rather, the threat comes from Russia itself, which does not even hesitate to halt development.

He believes that when the freedom of art and culture is snatched away in a country, all spheres of life there become paralysed.

On one side, the government wants to put an artificial layer of patriotism and tradition on everyone, from children to adults, while on the other, society is struggling with despair, inflation, and isolation.

Sokurov's fear seems completely accurate: the darkness of the Soviet era has returned.

— — —

Now let us also talk a little about the war zone. Recently, Zelenskyy made an important statement: under Operation "Vivaldi", Ukrainian forces have made further gains in the Lyman sector of the Donetsk region.

In addition, units of the Airborne Assault Forces are successfully completing their missions as part of another active defence operation.

Previous reports indicated that, thanks to Operation "Vivaldi", Ukrainian forces had cleared about 75 square kilometres of territory of Russian troops and liberated an additional 10 square kilometres.

According to the head of state, at present fierce battles are underway simultaneously in many important sectors of the front.

Reports of extremely intense fighting are coming in, especially from the Pokrovsk, Kostiantynivka, and Lyman sectors.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian units are also continuously carrying out combat missions in the Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv, and Sumy regions.

The president said, "Overall, during the past week, in all active combat zones of the front, our units have eliminated 10,660 Russian soldiers — killed and wounded. And we have video evidence of each of these losses suffered by Russia."

By gaining a tactical advantage in sectors like Lyman and through 'active defence', the Ukrainian army is proving that it is not ready to kneel before Russian pressure.

However, the strategic reality is that until the fundamental balance on the front line changes, local gains of 10 to 85 square kilometres cannot determine the war's ultimate course.

Despite heavy casualties, Russia's demographic and weapons-production capacity is vast, while for Ukraine it is becoming increasingly challenging over time to replace every soldier and every Western missile.