Notes

Ukraine invasion: Russians feel the pain of international sanctions
The toughest defenses, known as the Surovikin Line, consisted of anti-vehicle ditches and obstacles, mines, and sophisticated trench networks. Furthermore, fears are growing over the future of US security assistance to Ukraine as additional funding remains held up by Congress — despite repeated pleas of urgency from the Biden administration. Officials in Washington, Kyiv, and European partner nations have sounded the alarms that the consequences of aid drying up may be catastrophic. They cautioned that "without major adjustments, or if Western support falters, the current path holds a high risk of exhaustion over time and Ukraine being forced to negotiate with Moscow from a position of weakness." Conflict experts are warning that Russia maintains a significant advantage over Ukraine in several key areas right now, and Kyiv will need to seriously dig in if it hopes to fend off Moscow's war machine and have any shot at offensive operations next year.


“At the beginning, I took a favourable position [of the campaign], because even before February 24, I considered it necessary to eliminate the Ukrainian problem. But now time has passed, it’s become obvious that no positive outcomes are to be expected. It seemed to me that all this was not real and could not last long.

Russia outlaws Meduza in attempt to stamp out independent news
I was planning to go see my family right about this time, but it doesn’t seem possible any more. I mean – there is probably a way to go to Russia, but almost zero way for me to come back to study, and as a new semester is coming, I’m not risking it. I have a residency permit right now, but it expires in May. Because of everything escalating so rapidly, I’m anxious about whether I’ll have issues renewing it due to me being Russian. There aren’t long lines at ATMs any more, but we saw them a few days ago.

Ukrainian drones attacked a St Petersburg oil terminal on Friday and another 110 miles west at Ust-Luga on Sunday. Since then, very limited amounts of those currencies have been available and there is a cap on how many roubles you can withdraw. On Russian state television, the invasion was framed as a defensive mission aimed at preserving Russian lives. On Wednesday, one week after the invasion began, the first Russian official resigned from his position at a global organisation in protest.
By Tuesday morning a Russian-language Change.org petition calling for an end of war in Ukraine had surpassed one million signatures. In contrast, during the same period, the percentage of Russians holding positive views of Ukrainians plummeted from 55 to 34 percent. Putin’s authoritarian and great power nationalistic regime fanned ethnic Russian nationalism, turning Russians against both the Ukraine state and Ukrainians as a people. Meanwhile, Putin’s repeated claim that Ukrainians and Russians are “one people” left no room for a Ukrainian identity other than that of “little Russians” in his Eurasian Union. Putin’s total control of the Russian media mobilized anti-Ukrainian hysteria among Russians in the decade leading up to the Kremlin’s 2014 aggression. “In the past few years, I’ve become closely involved with volunteering.

Why Do So Many Russians Say They Support the War in Ukraine?
By that, he means that those who were most connected to the outside world might have been less inclined to support Putin's military operation, but now find themselves cut off from the West. That means they're on conflicting sides — and feel the shunning of Russia most of all. ” — showed that there is little enthusiasm for a “real,” large-scale war among members of Russia’s modern, urban society (the country’s military operations in Syria and eastern Ukraine in recent years were not seen as real wars). Most ordinary Russians are in the middle, trying to make sense of a situation they didn't choose, don't understand and feel powerless to change. https://diigo.com/0vbo7g have been attacked 220 times since the war in Ukraine began, Moscow’s interior ministry has said.


Sociologists and pollsters have tried to gauge opinion, but there is no freedom of speech or information in Russia so it is impossible to tell if people are being honest. International sanctions have not brought Russia to the brink of 1990s-style economic collapse. But, as Belfast-based Russian academic Aleksandr Titov has observed, Russia is nonetheless living through a crisis. 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.

Ukraine-Russia war live: Russia 'captures Ukrainian village'
I haven’t lived with my parents for many years, but even if I did, I wouldn’t argue with them, because it’s their business what to think. Where I am, people typically express their opinion at rallies, on social networks and among their inner circle. Usually, people will spread the word about protests secretly. But everyone who wants to participate can easily find out about it. For example, in certain online communities, they’ll just post a single number (indicating a date) and everyone understands everything. But I don’t feel safe expressing my opinion, especially when I talk about it online or on the phone.

“It’s not about having to reconsider this one event but everything you thought and understood over the last ten or fifteen years,” Volkov told me. Zaichikov travelled to Kyiv during the Maidan revolution, out of curiosity rather than to take part. They were not recognised by Ukraine’s central government, whom Ivan blames for what happened next. I’m against the war, and most of my friends and people I know feel the same way.
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. The fate of Ukraine has enormous implications for the rest of the continent, the health of the global economy and even America’s place in the world.

He had been born in Kyiv in 1977, when Ukraine was still a part of the Soviet Union, but was brought up and educated in the United Kingdom, after his parents went into exile there. Still, he notes, the survey results reveal at least as much about what people are willing to say in public than about how they truly feel. Young Russians tell us about a war few wanted and how the sanctions are affecting their lives. At demonstrations, people are detained for several days or fined. Last week the Kremlin sent out letters to ten publications, warning them not to use the words "invasion," "attack" or "declaration of war" in their coverage.
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