How Putin's Long War Is Destroying the Fabric of Russian Society
As we have chronicled unendingly, Russia is dying. Putin is hastening the end.
by Melissa Lawford
December 5, 2024
When Timothy Ash travelled around the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, he met young veterans who had returned from the war in Afghanistan. They were psychologically broken – and drunk.
“They were pretty effed-up, a lot of them,” says Ash, now Professor of European Studies at the University of Oxford.
One night in Volgograd, in southern Russia, Ash met a man in his mid-20s who had fought in Afghanistan. “He got absolutely blasted, drunk as hell. Something was not right with the kid. He ended up getting attacked by a group of youths because he’d gotten so drunk. He got beaten to pulp. I had to drag him out.”
Russia has a long history with alcoholism. But after the fall of the Soviet Union, drinking was in decline.
Now, following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, official figures …
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