Grin and Bear It or Lie Back and Enjoy It

You may have wondered where are the Russian liberal, democratic human rights activists, the darlings of the Western media, and why aren’t they condemning their despotic führer?

Are there so few of them left that you only hear of them when they’re exiled, arrested or killed, depleting further their sparse ranks?

I’m bemoaning their meagre membership but I am curious about the likes of Andrey Makarevich, who wanted to organize a million man march in Mosco; Alexei Navalny, who died in prison; Boris Nemtsov killed on a bridge, Anna Politkovskaya killed in the entryway to her apartment, and others. As famous as they were, there weren’t enough of them to stand up and depose Putin or pass the mantle to the next generation.

The Guardian in Great Britain also wondered in its February 22, 2026, edition. The newspaper stated: “The strategy of Russia’s liberal elite is clear: make your peace with Putin. This is how they survive.”

So it seems as if they went underground ideologically rather than challenge him.

Twelve years into the latest Russian invasion of Ukraine as well as seizure of Crimea and Luhansk and Donetsk, Russia’s intellectual elite has shown no sign of resisting the very difficult spot that Putin placed them in by acting without their consultation. Instead, the so-called dissidents or wannabe dissidents have largely adapted, reshaping itself in ways that ensure its survival in what increasingly looks like a state of permanent conflict. They also boast of the proper Soviet political lineage. But they’re nowhere near the previous generation’s courage of Andrei Sakharov, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Andrei Amalrik, Liudmyla Alekseyeva and others.

The newspaper used as examples of this disappearing act Nikita Mikhalkov and Olga Lyubimova, current minister of culture of Russia.

Mikhalkov’s father, Sergei, wrote the Soviet national anthem under Joseph Stalin, rewrote it during the thaw and revised it again under Putin. The son would have had an easy time of joining the political elite. Nikita, now 80, is a clearcut imperialist and a close ally of Putin.

Olga Lyubimova was more colorful in her explanation as she struggles between the two lifestyles—brave and not; official or unseen.

The Guardian wrote that as a prominent and well-connected member of Russia’s elite, Lyubimova is perhaps the clearest example of how that elite has adapted to Moscow’s aggressive, imperial reality. She started her career in the early 2000s as an aspiring television journalist, but from the early days relied on her connections with Mikhalkov and the Russian Orthodox Church. And yet she happily mixed with Moscow liberals – in the 2000s it still appeared possible to make your career without thinking too much about the Kremlin. Many in Russia were once part of this group, the Guardian pointed out.

Some of her friends and acquaintances also had the proper pedigree as descendants of prominent Soviet families and felt nostalgic for the status they had lost with the collapse of the Soviet Union. As journalists, many reported from post-Soviet hotspots in the 1990s – South Ossetia, Abkhazia, but also Serbia – and became convinced of the existence of a large US conspiracy against the Russian empire and its traditional allies.

And most of them, being ambitious, wanted a role in Russian history. But how can they penetrate it. They became convinced that in a country such as Russia, this could only be achieved by serving the ruler: you are either “in” or “out” – and if you are out, you are a loser. There’s no other way. They had embraced this logic before 2022. Now, in a time of repression targeting many Russian state institutions – including the culture ministry – this logic feels sounder still. So what can they do? Do they deceive themselves? In their minds it comes down to realizing that it doesn’t pay to tangle to Putin.

But it was Lyubimova who probably offered the most succinct explanation of why people like her – neither narrow-minded nor brainwashed – chose to side with the Kremlin. After all that would be their salvation rather than betrayal. When Moscow was deeply shaken by mass protests in 2010-11 against Putin’s return to the Kremlin, Lyubimova’s liberal friends joined the demonstrations. She abstained. She responded by publishing online what she called Lyubimova’s manifesto for surviving in this brutal Russia:

“I lie on my back, spread my legs, breathe deeply, and even try to enjoy it.”

Now that’s a quote that she’ll be proud to show her descendants.