Putin’s war casts shadow over life as usual

Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Tuesday. Picture: AFP

The big ticket in London this northern summer – aside from the extraordinary ABBA avatar concert – is surely Patriots at the small Almeida Theatre in Islington.

Written by Peter Morgan, the man behind the smash-hit Netflix show The Crown, it’s a study in power, this time featuring Vladimir Putin and the oligarchs who made him, then suffered at his hands. Given the complexity of the material, it could have been deadly dull, but Morgan and a strong cast have created an entertaining lesson in realpolitik.

Morgan’s version of how Boris Berezovsky, the brilliant mathematician turned billionaire in post-Cold War Russia, anointed the St Petersburg apparatchik for higher office in the 1990s, only to have Putin turn on him, offers a revealing take on the man now threatening the world via Ukraine.

The Putin of Patriots, which ends with Berezovsky’s death in Britain in 2013, is a more nuanced character than the Putin whose current operations suggest he is both bad and mad. On stage are competing narratives of powerful men, each convinced they are working in the national interest, as Putin transforms before our eyes from awkward political neophyte to deadly political snake.

Despite the fact the play does not look at Putin’s actions in the past decade, Patriots is on point at a time when London theatregoers can look forward to staggering increases in their power bills and cost of living this winter, thanks to the Russian president.

The sun has shone (sometimes too strongly) across Britain and Europe these past few months but the threat posed by a relentless war in Ukraine is never far below the surface given the grip Putin has on the heating, cooking and transport needs of the average punter.

In Italy, every talk show has at least one nay-sayer arguing Ukraine is not Italy’s fight for a host of reasons, including the fact a litre of petrol costs up to €1.90 ($2.79) these days. That’s about 65c more than Australians pay, even though average weekly earnings in this country can be as much as double those in Italy.

Australians can debate the causes of rising costs and inflation but in Europe ordinary people see a very clear and simple line between Ukraine and their wallets. It feeds into a wider ambivalence towards Russia.

A recent poll by the European Council on Foreign Relations found that while 56 per cent of Italians hold Russia responsible for the war, 27 per cent think Ukraine, the EU or the US is to blame. It’s not just the economy, stupid. In Italy there’s a reasonable level of anti-Americanism and Euroscepticism, and a political elite influenced by the presence of an active communist party up until the 1990s, according to Teresa Coratella, a program manager at the ECFR.

She wrote in June: “The party shaped Italian politics, priorities, culture, and society for 70 years. And, until the collapse of the Soviet Union, it had strong ties with Moscow. This period of Italian history still influences the public debate today.”

Some sense of the culture exists, too, in Turin, an admittedly left-wing city historically, which this summer hosted an International Festival of Economics with talks from five Nobel prize-winners and lectures ranging from “In defence of public debt” and “The tyranny of merit: why we live in a society of winners and losers” to “Are markets moral?”

Previous prime minister Mario Draghi, brought down last month by forces within his own coalition, looked like having his work cut out to keep Italy in the Western tent. The question of whether Russia helped destroy Draghi is now playing out as Italy heads to a general election on September 25. Ironically, an exit from the Western tent could be less likely if the poll delivers far-right Brothers of Italy leader Giorgia Meloni to the prime ministership.

She traditionally has been pro-Putin but in recent times has backed Ukraine, late last month stating: “We have always defended and supported the Ukrainian cause, not just because we believe in the cause but also because Italy cannot risk being the weak link in the Western alliance. (The West) needs to know they can count on us. I would not tolerate any ambiguity on this point.”

The blood and horror of the war can seem distant for many Europeans, who continue their lives uninterrupted. But there are constant reminders beyond prices. In the city of Luckenwalde, 50km from Berlin, and only about 10 hours from Ukraine, a guide casually mentions that these days, in the small nearby villages, one comes upon young mothers and children who can’t answer you in German. A small number perhaps compared with the estimated five million driven from Ukraine (about 870,000 of whom have entered Germany) but an example of the reach of war.

While public opinion in Italy and Germany (the ECFR poll showed 66 per cent blamed Russia for the war) has been mixed, the British public is supportive (83 per cent blame Russia). The pretenders to the role of prime minister, Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss, may try to distance themselves from each other and their predecessor but are joined at the hip with Boris Johnson when it comes to his tough line on Ukraine and the $6.5bn in military and economic assistance already tendered.

The Tory leadership fight and the Italian hiatus leave government on hold in both these important economies, but it almost doesn’t matter as Europeans emerge from their homes (and the third season of Covid discontent) to savour a summer of long, warm evenings or head to the sea for a brief vacation.

Covid has left its mark with 243 million cases of the virus in Europe since March 2020, and almost everyone seems to know of someone who has died from the disease. But who is worrying about social distancing in these precious summer months when the streets and parks are filled with singles and couples and children hanging out until 9 or 10 o’clock at night?

The region is awash with travel horror stories, from chaos at the usually efficient Frankfurt airport to queues of Brits stuck in cars for up to a day as they tried to cross the Channel last month. Record temperatures and drought have ravaged areas such as the north of Italy and terrified the British public but there is a sense the world is getting back to normal.

In Britain, government compensation for power costs (estimated to almost triple this year) has started flowing to low-income earners and pensioners, although the outlook remains dire for many, and weaning Europe off Russian supplies of natural gas, crude oil and solid fuel such as coal remains the key challenge as leaders juggle their energy needs against sanctions.

Patriots ends its Almeida run on August 20 and one hopes it can come to Australia soon. Meanwhile, you can grab a Putin lesson from the script now available in print and as an e-book.