Why Pro-Russian War Supporters Call It a “Deal”

“Thieves, corrupt officials, and traitors might arrange a ‘deal’ for us, but we, combat officers, still hope that we will be able [to win],” said Ilya Yashin, quoting a former FSB officer who fought in Ukraine and accompanied him and other political prisoners during a recent exchange.

Russian supporters of the war have been talking about a “deal” since the first months of the full-scale invasion. They may understand it in very different ways, but they agree that it is deception and betrayal.

What is meant by “deal”

Usually, when people talk about “deal,” they mean one of two things.

The first is that the Russian army, for one reason or another, is still not really fighting, not at full strength. “Everyone should know that by and large we have not started anything seriously yet,” Vladimir Putin said in July 2022. A part of society believes that it still has not started. The main arguments are the bridges across the Dnieper that have not yet been bombed, the Ukrainian “decision-making centers” that have not been destroyed, Vladimir Zelensky, who did not die during his trips to the front, and even Joe Biden, who survived his visit to Kyiv.

A separate topic is the ongoing transit of Russian gas and oil through pipelines through Ukraine to Europe. There is a fairly banal idea here that for Russia (and Ukraine), war is not a good enough reason to refuse money for hydrocarbons (and their transit). But there are some conspiracy theories. For example: the destruction of the gas transportation system is opposed by the U.S. because the Americans want to produce shale gas in the future at a field in the Donetsk and Kharkiv Oblasts and then sell it to Europe.

Some people also justified the defeats of the Russian army in the first year of the war with the “deal.” In November 2022, one of the largest pro-war Telegram channels close to the Defense Ministry, Rybar, conducted a poll about the Russian retreat from Kherson, and 9.1% voted for the option “agreement, ‘deal.’” In Z-channels, such an explanation can be found for the 2022 retreats from Kharkiv Oblast and from Zmiinyi Island.

Even the failure of the counteroffensive of the AFU in the summer of 2023 can be explained by the fact that the “deal” “failed.” “Now everyone can understand what happens when Kharkiv Oblast or Kherson is not surrendered as part of a shameful traitorous deal,” Alex Parker Returns, associated with Wagner PMC, wrote at the time. 

An officer of the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS), who runs the Fighterbomber channel, is sure that Russia has not deployed serious forces on the border with Ukraine because it “has some kind of agreement with NATO.” “There is not a single logical explanation for breaking that deal, other than the certainty that the promised [Ukraine] fuckup is not guaranteed and unlikely. Either these promises have been prepared for in the meantime,” he wrote after the start of the AFU offensive in the Kursk Oblast.

However, such statements have never been mainstream in Z-channels, Ivan Filippov, a writer, journalist, and author of Na Zzzzzapadnom fronte bez peremen (“No change on the Western Front”) Telegram channel explained to IStories. “Putin’s phrase that ‘we haven’t started yet,’ if it is repeated, it is ironic: ‘Well, how come, why aren’t we fighting in full force?’” — says Filippov.

The second meaning of “deal” is negotiation, which can stop the war before Russia achieves its goals. War supporters may have many variants of these goals — from the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhya and Kherson Oblasts within their administrative boundaries (as Putin demands) to the seizure of all of Ukraine.

The main tribune of opponents of such a “deal” is Z-channels. “They are always afraid of this, afraid that Putin will be tricked again — that’s how they wrote when it was possible to write frankly about Putin,” notes Ivan Filippov. 

At the same time, the more connected the author is with the authorities, the more cautious his statements are. The texts of “war correspondents” working for the state media can be called “conditional:” “And if there are negotiations — how pathetic it would be, and it would be better if there were no negotiations…” In large pro-war Telegram channels, such as Dva Mayora (“Two Majors”), there can be arguments about how great it would be if the Russian army, which has already slaughtered itself in Ukraine, had not been betrayed, the journalist says.

Who is afraid of the “deal” and why

People with an actively involved pro-war position are especially eager to talk about the “deal.” In sociological terms, this is a marginal group, explains Ekaterina Shulman, PhD in political science. According to the methodology of the sociological project Chronicles, a person can be recorded as an active supporter of the war if three conditions are met: the respondent expressed support for the war, would not support the decision to withdraw troops from the territory of Ukraine without achieving the goals of the “special military operation” and believes that the priority of the budget should be spending on the army. In February 2023 there were 22% of such respondents, in October 2023 — 12%, in January 2024 — 17%. In one year, their number has fallen by almost a quarter.

Of course, not all “consistent militarists” believe that the Russian army is not fighting at full strength, or are afraid of the “deal.”

“The group of supporters of the war is very diverse in its composition: there are former readers of the newspaper Zavtra, people like Strelkov-Girkin who are nostalgic for the Soviet myth, and direct Stalinists, people obsessed with geopolitics, mystical anti-Semites who believe that Soros and Rothschild from an underground bunker control the world in general and the course of the war in particular. These people are by nature in opposition to the government, but when the war started, they suddenly found themselves mainstream, one of the very few groups allowed to speak out publicly. Because of this visibility and audibility, it seems that there are more of them than there really are,” says Shulman.

In the early months of the war, these people were encouraged by the fact that they were suddenly on the same page with the government. By the late summer of 2022, however, things began to change. “They still have the feeling that they and the authorities are doing the same thing. But the authorities are doing it slowly, not for real, like they don’t really want to. The militarists began to wonder: why are we fighting as if for fun? Why does gas trade with Europe continue? Why are there some kinds of exchanges? Why is the Russian army retreating? Why are there talks about any negotiations at all? It is completely incomprehensible to them. There is a widespread belief in these circles that Westerners and liberals are still in power, that the authorities would like to bring everything back to the way it was before 2022, that they have families and interests in the West, that they are fake patriots, that they are not actually for the people. What is there to say? These people are socially and politically very naive. They have no experience in defending their interests, not even the kind of experience that a liberal-minded citizen who has ever protested against renovation or tried to elect his municipal deputy,” the political scientist continues.

The development of conspiracy theories is greatly facilitated by the high awareness of people compared to past wars. “The fact that during any war there are behind-the-scenes negotiations, the warring countries continue to trade with each other, everyone takes care of neutral Switzerland, in which everyone has money lying around — such nice details citizens were not shown before, they were the domain of the ruling class. And now people have the information, but they don’t know what to do with it. So they marvel: “How come, they haven’t blown up the gas pipeline yet?’” — says Shulman.

As for the fighting, compared to the authors of Z-channels, ordinary people have a much worse idea of what is happening at the front, says Ivan Filippov. Therefore, they may look for an explanation for the protracted war in conspiracy theories. “Very few people know the realities of the frontline and understand the fighting, the heavy losses, how little the Russians have advanced. People are looking for explanations as to why ‘Kyiv in three days’ has turned into a war that has lasted two and a half years,” the journalist believes.

Can Russia be suspected of not wanting to fight in full force?

From a military point of view, there are two obvious things Russia could do: use nuclear weapons and conduct a new mobilization.

Since the war began, Putin has repeatedly stated that Russia would use nuclear weapons if necessary — if there was a threat to its existence and sovereignty. In June this year he said: “I do not believe that such an occasion has come. And there is no such necessity.” At the same time, Putin recognizes that the use of nuclear weapons could speed up the military’s tasks, but “even more important is concern for the lives and health of our guys who are fighting at the front.”

Things are not easy with a new wave of large-scale mobilization either. Perhaps the military would be able to recruit, as in the fall of 2022, a few hundred thousand more people. The question is whether it will be possible to find enough modern military equipment for the new units. Another problem is the shortage of officers, primarily junior and middle-ranking ones, military expert Yury Fedorov explained. Mediazona and BBC News Russian have confirmed the deaths of more than 3,800 officers of the Russian army and other security agencies in the war according to open sources.

Otherwise, neither Russia nor Ukraine now has weapons or tactics that could significantly change the course of the war, Robert Hamilton, a retired U.S. Army colonel and analyst at the Foreign Relations Research Institute (FPRI), told IStories. Both sides have strong defensive lines, intelligence, and a great ability to strike with long-range weapons. Because of this, it is difficult for the enemy to concentrate significant forces at the point of a possible breakthrough. The exception is the offensive of the AFU in the Kursk Oblast that began last week, where the Ukrainians managed to take advantage of the poorly protected border and poor coordination between the Russian military, Rosgvardia and border guards.

As for the bridges over the Dnieper River, the Russian army probably simply lacks the capability to destroy more than 20 such robust engineering structures. “The most effective way to destroy the bridges is targeted bombardment, but given the threat of Ukrainian air defenses, it is very difficult to do so. Theoretically it can be done by drones and missiles, but their warhead is much smaller than that of a bomb, so a lot of such munitions would be needed,” Hamilton reasoned. Russian missiles are far inferior to American missiles in terms of accuracy, Igor Girkin said last year: “We can’t hit with our ‘ultra-precise’ missiles the way HIMARS hit. Even from a relatively short distance.”

Taking advantage of the fact that the Russian army does not strike pipelines is not easy either, Hamilton notes. In theory, the AFU could deploy fighters and equipment near them, but there is no guarantee that the Russians will not hit them and damage the pipes. If that happens, Ukraine will suffer serious reputational damage at the international level.