With Russia at war, fascism has taken hold of its young people, Canadian researcher finds

As Ukraine's allies wait and wonder about what gains its military's much-anticipated counteroffensive against Russia could bring, a Canadian researcher is looking beyond the battlefield to the war's eventual end.

And what he sees is dire.

Ian Garner, a cultural historian and Russia analyst from Queen's University in Kingston, Ont., is touring the United Kingdom discussing his new book, Z Generation: Into the Heart of Russia's Fascist Youth, and his conclusions about the prospects for a lasting peace with Russia are pessimistic, to say the least.

His gloomy message is that with or without Vladimir Putin as president, support for his regime's toxic outlook is deeply pervasive, including among young people, who have typically been seen as the most "Western-friendly" Russians.

Garner said he spent months reaching out and interacting with younger Russians on social media sites, such as Telegram and VKontakte, who support their country's war of aggression against Ukraine.

Out of the hundreds of people he tried to connect with, eventually a few dozen agreed to engage with him — and Garner said he came away with the conclusion that fascism is firmly entrenched.

"I found ... an alarmingly large number of young people who were engaging [using] the genocidal language of the state," Garner recently told an audience at the Pushkin House cultural centre in London.

"They wanted me to understand that they are the good guys, that when they talk about killing Ukrainians to save Ukraine, they genuinely believe it and that it is the morally right thing."

Garner said he was repeatedly told that the most dangerous "disease" that threatens Russia is Ukraine.

"If we can cut off the tumour [Ukraine], maybe we can destroy the disease," he said, referring to the twisted logic that is being indoctrinated into Russian youth groups and the state education system.

If Garner is correct, the implications for a permanent, peaceful resetting of the relationship between Russia and its Western neighbours after the fighting ends are profound.

"When Putin goes, or if the war were to end tomorrow, when you look within Russia, we still have a problem that is sitting there and that is the Russian people as they exist today," he told CBC News in an interview.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, has resulted in the most viscous, destructive conflict in Europe since the Second World War.

Entire Ukrainian cities such as Mariupol and Bakhmut have been razed to the ground from Russian attacks.