“How many more hours?”, asked, somewhat incredulously, Maria, next to her husband, Valeri. “About three, ma’am,” replied the patient Turkish Airlines attendant at early check-in on Monday (28) at Vnukovo, one of Moscow’s international airports.
The 7:15 am flight takes, usually 1h40min to reach the main Turkish city. Now, about four o’clock. “I don’t believe it. Of course, it’s nothing compared to what’s happening in Ukraine, but still,” Maria said.
At a nearby counter, the 8:00 am Pobeda flight also announced a half-hour gain on the route to Kaliningrad, Russia’s “hotspot” between Lithuania and Poland. Looking at the map, a deviation from European airspace prohibited to Moscow companies as retaliation for the war in Ukraine and a flight through international waters in the Baltic.
While in the case of Turkish, which does not boycott Russia, like other European companies, the reason is more crude: not to end up shot down, as happened in 2014 with a Malaysian Boeing-777 during the civil war in Donbass. The plane heading to Istanbul goes almost to Warsaw and then descends to the southeast.
The couple, in their 30s, look affluent: designer clothes and luggage, at least Maria speaks good English. In 2021, there were 4.7 million just like him, walking in Turkey. The typical middle class that grew up and appeared under Valdimir Putin and that now faces with fear the cancellation of their country in the West that they started to frequent in the last two decades.
Young people declined to comment on the reasons for the war, either agreeing with Putin or disagreeing and fearing some kind of reprisal. Repression is visible, after all, at home.
This Tuesday (1st), the Russian communications regulatory agency enforced the threat of censorship to anyone calling the war a war, not a “special military operation”: it took off the air Radio Eco in Moscow, one of the most country traditions.
In the field of limitations, the Visa and MasterCard credit card brands will stop issuing in the country, and Apple announced the end of its online store and the Apple Pay mobile payment system, widely used in Moscow.
While these measures are palpable, the all-Russian witch-hunt climate is becoming a source of concern for the country’s citizens abroad.
A reporter for a major Brussels-based news agency complains that she is being looked down on in the newsroom — just her, who left Russia before Putin came to power in 1999 and has never been sympathetic to the Kremlin boss. Suddenly colleagues came to ask if she wanted a Third World War.
The rest is a litany of debatable punitive measures: the numerous cancellations of Russian artists from cultural events, to the country’s suspension from the Qatar Cup by FIFA — an event not exactly known for its humanitarian vein, given the working conditions in the construction of their stadiums. Or the ban on Russian vodka in some American states.
None of this is measurable yet in terms of Putin’s popularity, something that perhaps has more to do with queues at empty ATMs due to the dissolution of the ruble. The middle class has always been a focus of resistance to his government since 2012, when his long-term project in power became evident.
But the real game is with the elite, which he keeps around him like an imperial court, fueling rivalries. The extent of the really tough sanctions adopted this time by the West remains to be seen.
