In this episode of War & Peace, Olga is joined by Sabine Fischer, senior fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), to discuss her book “The Chauvinist Threat: Russia’s War and the West’s Response”. They unpack how chauvinist politics – defined as a combination of imperialism, sexism and autocracy – have shaped Russian society and politics under President Vladimir Putin and helped pave the way for Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. They examine how the war has accelerated chauvinism in Russia, including through pressure on women to have children, rising domestic violence and the repression of feminist and LGBTQI+ activism, while also raising the war’s complex effects on gender relations in Ukraine. They also consider how different outcomes to the war could shape Russia’s future and politics across Europe, what guardrails liberal democracies, including those in the process of re-arming, have against chauvinist shifts, and whether and how chauvinist politics might be reversed.

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For more, check out Sabine’s book “The Chauvinist Threat: Russia’s War and the West’s Response”, and our Europe page.