Livid about Liberalism: Putin, State Controlled Television and Kremlin Portrayals of Liberalism

Abstract

Russian President Vladimir Putin has demonstrated a keen interest in questions of history and political theory over his more than two decades at or near the apex of Russian power. These questions became particularly salient in Russia’s political discourse after Putin returned to power in 2012 and inaugurated the so-called “conservative turn.” This paper examines how Putin characterized liberalism between his return to power in 2012 and the start of the “special military operation” in Ukraine on 24 February 2022. It contends that, over this decade, Putin consistently positioned himself as a moderate critic of Western liberalism as opposed to an uncompromising ideologue, even after the 2014 Ukraine crisis. To highlight this tendency, this paper simultaneously examines two prominent Russian state television personalities – Dmitrii Kiselev and Vladimir Solov’ev – who have used strident rhetoric in describing Western liberalism, notably after the 2014 crisis in Ukraine.