Elvira Bary

Admit that Russia is losing the war it started in Ukraine. Admit that its economy keeps taking damage from sanctions and the ongoing war.

Instead, they keep convincing everyone that there is no problem at all.

In Russia, a mistake is often seen as proof that you are weak or stupid.

This is true at the top of the state, but it is also true much lower down. Everyone must stand their ground, even when the ground is already moving.

That is the first rule of denial.

People do not deny reality because they are blind. They deny it because reality threatens their place.

In a democracy, a politician can make a terrible mistake, then lose an election and resign, give interviews about it, and later write a memoir. It may be humiliating, but it is survivable.

An autocrat has a different problem.

He did not come to power through open competition that he can safely lose. He controls the system through informal bargains with elites. If he admits a major failure, people around him may begin to ask a dangerous question:

Why is he still there?

So the mistake can never be admitted.

The ruler must be right because the whole structure depends on him being right.

The same habit repeats in smaller offices.

A local official who says, “There is no fuel,” risks punishment from above. A hospital director who says, “We have no medicine,” admits failure. A commander who says, “We cannot take this town,” becomes weak.

So the report goes upward in a safer shape:

Everything is under control.
There are temporary difficulties.
Measures are being taken.

That is how reality denial becomes a career skill.

People begin defending their mistakes after reality has already disproved them.

A bad decision becomes part of identity. If you admit it was wrong, you are admitting that you were not as strong, smart, loyal, or important as you pretended to be.

This is why Russian denial feels so stubborn.

It is a social reflex.

When a system gives people no safe way to be wrong, they learn to make reality wrong instead.

To keep this second reality alive, the state has to control words.

This is why Russian censorship renames things.

A war becomes a “special military operation.”

An explosion becomes a “clap.”

A retreat becomes “regrouping.”

Panic buying becomes “increased demand.”

Failure becomes “everything is under control.”

Denial works in the short term, but in the long run, it destroys the system’s ability to correct itself.

When officials are punished for bad news, they report only good news upward.

Eventually, the ruler receives a picture of the country that has been cleaned of reality. The center makes decisions based on softened facts, delayed facts, or invented facts.

Denial spreads responsibility until nobody holds it.

The president did not fail; enemies sabotaged him.

The refinery system did not fail; fuel demand increased.

The citizen did not suffer because of state policy; he suffered because hostile forces wanted to destabilize the country.

Every explanation points outward.

That is comforting, but also fatal.

A person can survive one bad decision if he admits it, changes course, and pays the cost early.

A state can survive failures too.

But a state that cannot admit failure keeps investing more resources in its failure.

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