Mark Galeotti: This is not Stalingrad’s generation
Outsiders hold are all kinds of abiding memes about Russians. Some are negative caricatures, such as the assumption that they are all vodka-swilling louts. Others, though, are much more positive, not least the dour and dogged determination of the Russian defending the Motherland. This is an image repeatedly raised in Russia and abroad, and even has a degree of traction in the interconnected worlds of policy and punditry. There is, for example, a school of thought that says sanctions, even expanded sectoral ones of the kind that would hit the economy as a whole, are futile simply because when push comes to shove, the doughty "muzhik" will always push back. In the defense of the Motherland, these voices claim, ordinary Russians are willing to make whatever sacrifices are needful to endure and prevail.
