Evaluation of Russia by Finnish Intelligence Colonel (English audio) | December 3, 2018

Credits and thank you to Thorsten Kurz for creating this synthesized English audio from the original Finnish language lecture. (https://youtu.be/kF9KretXqJw) Martti J. Kari (former intelligence colonel in the Finnish Defence Forces): Russian strategic culture - Why Russia does things the way it does? https://twitter.com/maraj60 Subtitles can be opened and changed from the video settings Quiet parts between sentences have been cut out of this version, therefore it's 6 minutes shorter than the original 0:00 Personal introduction 0:45 Governmental, political and military questions - How is Russia different from all the other countries and why? 2:44 Russia's six layers in history: Slavic, Byzantine, Asian, chaos, European and Superpower 4:25 Cultural features from the Mongol era: corruption, cruelty and lying 3:54 The era of Europe and Russia as a superpower: Peter the Great, a land between the West and the East 7:22 Geographical nature of Russia, 11 time zones and flat area on the west 8:02 Belief in Russianness at three points: Orthodoxy, autocracy and the people, narodnost 8:23 Autocracy: a central authoritarian regime 9:20 Autocracy: Faith in a fair good tsar and princes 9:40 Autocracy: Boyars between the people and infallible leaders: No right of ownership, but a right of possession according to social status, rules, corruption and nomenclature 12:06 Autocracy: Boyars practically in a modern Russia 13:17 Orthodoxy: The Importance of Religion in Russia 14:36 The people: narodnost, nationality. The Tsar knows better what is best for the people 15:26 Ability to wait and endure suffering and two different realities, sacrificing oneself to the leader 17:02 Homo sovieticus - the new Soviet man 18:12 Faith in Russian summarized before and now - Has anything changed? 18:32 "A little war in the border areas is needed to sustain a patriotic spirit" from the 19th century 18:45 Social system - receiving information in Russia from a state television channel 20:09 The Kremlin's narratives: a besieged fort, a constant war, and an enemy at the gates 21:56 The Kremlin's neurotic view of the world affairs is based on a traditional and instinctive sense of insecurity 23:16 Faith in power and use of force: Deaf to the logic of reason, but very sensitive to the logic of power 23:58 Territorial enlargement: fear-based imperialism 24:54 Asymmetry - Information Geopolitics & Information Influence: Are characters like Johan Bäckman just distracting from real influence? 26:55 Russia's Messianic Mission and Pan-Slavism - The Leaders' Knowledge of Saving Europe 27:59 The Russians seeing the world through history 29:46 How do Russians see Finns? Bronze Horseman - A.S. Pushkin - The Russian landscape through the first poem taught to children 31:10 Russia's technological backwardness throughout history, from ships to atomic bombs to computers 33:24 Russian Truth: The Significance of Language and Concepts, Especially for Lie and Truth 36:27 Examples of the frontiers of lie and truth in a Russian narrative 39:55 Russia's destabilizers in modern times 41:34 What are the Russians afraid of? Fear of internal unrest and striving for a strong leader 43:50 The Russian Landscape Through History, Changes and Similarities: Tsarist Russia, Soviet Union, Chaos in the 90s, 2000s 51:46 Homo re-sovieticus in the last few years: worship of the past and other themes of Russian thinking today 46:23 What does Russia's future look like? Five different scenarios based on history 55:49 Belief in a fair good tsar and princes: Russia's next leader? 50:09 Putin's support and comments on national conditions 53:38 The impact of online youth on Russia's future Russia's recent actions, such as the occupation of Crimea, the wars in eastern Ukraine and Syria, the excessive use of force against protesters, possible special operations abroad and, for example, the control of the Internet, partly fought against western thinking. However, the Kremlin leadership believes these actions are justified. Justification can be explained through the theory of strategic culture. Synthesized English audio on this video is based on the subtitles of the original video. Document can be viewed here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1REPlzRsenZPWkJWERs8LiYrtyzYVs8Z_dmhVWU9AvBM/edit?usp=sharing Transcript as a blog post by Ryanad2 here: https://the-culture-shocks.blogspot.com/2022/03/evaluation-of-russia-by-finish.html Questions & Answers -section after the lecture: https://youtu.be/ZqBzJMEJqZ8 Source: https://m3.jyu.fi/jyumv/ohjelmat/it/panu/kyber/hybridivaikuttaminen-ja-turvallisuus/031218 Presented on December 3, 2018 (in Finnish)