Notes

How Do Russian Citizens Feel About the War in Ukraine?
Sanctions have targeted banks, oil refineries, military and luxury product exports as well as members of the Russian regime and oligarchs with close ties to the Kremlin. Companies, too, have closed their doors in Russia, including fast-food giant McDonald’s which has temporarily shut its roughly 850 outlets. Finally, a large number of Ukrainians have ties to Russians and Russia, through mixed marriages, work, professional relations and longstanding friendships. Crimea was the only part of Ukraine to have a slight majority of Russians at the time of the breakup of the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, 55 per cent of the peninsula’s population voted for Ukraine’s independence.

But when things opened up in the 1990s, he says, his field exploded. The longer the war drags on, the deeper the human and economic toll in Russia, which will almost invariably impact public opinion, Botchkovar says. Lack of data about conditions in the Russian Arctic is already hampering climate science, and will cause ever-growing gaps in our understanding of how climate change affects the fastest-warming region of the planet, scientists warn. That sentiment, Ray said, is especially strong near the front lines in the nation’s south and east, where the toll of war is worst.
The economic collapse looming as a consequence of the sanctions imposed by Western states erodes popular consent for his rule, potentially even among those who rely on state-sponsored media for information. The sanctions now hitting Russia are being described as economic war - they aim to isolate the country and create a deep recession there. Western leaders hope the unprecedented measures will bring about a change in thinking in the Kremlin. There are, however, Russian independent media who still defy government restrictions. For example, Novaya Gazeta blurred out the anti-war poster held up by a protester who interrupted a live news bulletin on Russian state TV. As a result, some of the few remaining independent media in Russia have started to censor themselves.

Ukraine war: Why so many Russians turn a blind eye to the conflict
According to the website OVD-Info, which specializes in political persecution, some 19,850 people have been arrested for protesting since February 24, 2022. For this reason, the Kremlin is suspicious of the demands of the female relatives of conscripts. Some laid flowers and individually picketed with signs at the places where the Eternal Flame commemorates Russian soldiers. As reported by ‘On the Way Home,’ some balaclava-wearing members of the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ Center for Combating Extremism approached the woman on the subway to identify them. However, these efforts did not frighten them, and the women continued their initiative in the days that followed. Their town has been directly affected, so we are worried about them.


What we do know is that young Russians, unlike their elders, are growing up in an era of smartphones and social networks, and therefore have access to a wider range of information compared with what they are told about the war on state media. The state propaganda apparatus — which has expanded from print media and TV into online platforms — has been crucial in crystallizing this acquiescence, especially since Putin came to power in the early 2000s. Significant shifts in Russian attitudes were detected across the country, sometimes over the prosecution of the war itself. For example, when Russian armed forces met much fiercer resistance from Ukrainians in March and April 2022, and reports of high death tolls filtered back into Russia, FilterLabs detected a decrease of support for the war in many regions of the country. But as the war drags into a second year and as more Russians feel its effects on their daily lives — especially the growing number of men drafted or conscripted into the armed forces — the limitations of Kremlin propaganda are increasingly apparent.

How do Russians feel about the war in Ukraine?
We really want to help, but we haven’t been able to solve problems even in our own country, and now requests are flying around that we stop the war in another country. We write about it on social networks, sign petitions, send money, go to rallies, but so far this hasn’t yielded any results, the government only hits us with a truncheon. On one hand, it’s affected everyone – psychologically, economically, and in many other ways. And on the other hand, I understand that we could be hurt if we did something to try and change it. People are arrested for even walking around the area where a protest was scheduled.


This data tells a different story about Russian public opinion, especially outside Moscow — a story Putin will not like. For the past year, the
Center for Strategic and International Studies has worked with
FilterLabs.AI, a Massachusetts-based data analytics firm, to track local sentiment across Russia using AI-enabled sentiment analysis. Thus the regime may yet rally the population around the notion that it is the West that has pushed Putin to extremes by expanding its security at Russia’s expense. The media clampdown means that many are unaware of the full scale of what is happening there, and see developments from a very different perspective. It is not just Ukraine’s 44 million people whose lives have been upended. In the coming days, many others far from the field of battle maybe find themselves buffeted by ripple effects.

Russia Threatens ‘Military Response’ to NATO Expansion
In response, the US, EU, UK and other countries have levelled sanctions, both general and targeted, and doors have closed to Russians around the world, from research institutions to sporting events, in protest at Russia’s invasion. Young Russians tell us about a war few wanted and how the sanctions are affecting their lives. Putin has inherited much of his world view from the Russian-chauvinist and Russocentric traditions of the former imperial and Soviet Russian regimes. His Ukrainophobic attitudes can be attributed in part to his being steeped in deeply rooted feelings of both Russian superiority and resentment towards Ukrainians who have consistently asserted their distinct identity.

But since the invasion of Ukraine, it has been harder for Russian scientists to share data about how climate change is affecting the region. Yet Volkov added that this tolerance, however passive, is likely to remain quite stable, even strong. On Monday Russia more than doubled its interest rate to 20% in response to the sanctions after the rouble plunged to record new lows. His Ukrainophobic attitudes can be attributed in part to his being steeped in deeply rooted feelings of both Russian superiority and resentment towards Ukrainians who have consistently asserted their distinct identity. In the meantime, sanctions affect every Russian citizen in their daily lives – both those who support and those who oppose the war, those at home and those abroad.
Under a bridge someone has daubed PEACE in big red letters. For centuries Muscovites have come here to build homes and businesses and get on quietly with their lives, leaving their rulers to pursue greater ambitions on a bigger stage where ordinary Russians have never had a part to play. Romanovsky is also concerned about young Russian scientists who are important to the future of climate research in the region. "Eventually, I believe that we will be able to communicate openly again." NATO countries are formally obligated to defend each other, so being admitted in the middle of a war is a difficult sell, experts say.

But ordinary Russians, many of whom get their information from state-controlled television which repeats many of the Kremlin's lines, are expected to start noticing differences to their lives soon. Standard polling often concentrates on population centers including Moscow and St. Petersburg, which can skew national averages. “If I watched different channels, I would probably have a different opinion, but I don’t watch them,” she said. "There are no dollars, no roubles - nothing! Well, there are roubles but I am not interested in them," said Anton (name changed), who is in his late 20s and was queuing at an ATM in Moscow. There are likely many others who hate Russia, but it must be remembered that it’s necessary to separate the Russian government, a mad machine of repression and destruction, and the people of Russia, who for the most part are not guilty.
“Surveys don’t show what people think, but what they are ready to say, how they are prepared to carry themselves in public,” Denis Volkov, the director of the Levada Center, the country’s premier independent polling and research organization, said. Even before the war, Russia was not the kind of place where you willy-nilly shared your political beliefs with strangers, let alone with those who called out of the blue. That tendency, forged in the Soviet period, only intensified in recent weeks, with new laws that criminalized “discrediting” the Russian military, spreading “fake news,” and making any mention in the press that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was war. In the third year of his war against Ukraine, Vladimir Putin decreed that this would be the year of the family in Russia. But now, two months before the presidential elections, some of those families are starting to become a headache for the government. Late last summer, a small group of mothers, wives and girlfriends of civilians, whom the Kremlin forced into military service in the Ukraine war in autumn 2022, started a Telegram channel to call for the soldiers’ return.


Volkov found that some 80% of respondents do support the military, but that group is by no means a monolith. He says about 50% have "definite support" without any qualms, but the other 30% have support with reservations. The Levada Center stays within those parameters by asking whether people support the actions of the Russian military. A couple walk in front of the Kremlin's Spasskaya Tower and St Basil's cathedral in downtown Moscow. While 80% of poll respondents say they support Russia's military, some have mixed feelings.


[Russian President Vladimir] Putin is just another man who has been in power too long. One person shouldn’t be in power for a long time, all this power twists and corrupts people. It was the same in 2014, with his decision to annex Crimea. “Since we lived in Russia, the war affected us quite a lot. My mother and I were very afraid for our lives, so the decision was made to leave. Not surprisingly, the major shift in opinion took place after 2014.

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