Notes

Why Many Russians Feel a Deep Unease Over Going to War The New York Times
The second, the seemingly inevitable offensive, stalled in the summer and was abandoned in early September following the success of Ukraine’s counter-offensive. In the third version, the Russian motherland has been declared in danger and hundreds of thousands of men are being drafted to fight. The “partial mobilisation” declared by Vladimir Putin on September 21st looks like forced improvisation and it is disrupting the balance of interests and loyalties in Russian society, where views on the war are very mixed. Volkov adds that public opinion matters, even though the Russian government isn't taking the public's pulse in order to plan its next moves. He says officials are instead monitoring the situation to make sure that it's "under control." Russia-based research outfits such as the Levada Center have been able to maintain some independence, but face higher rates of non-response.

She kept checking the news on her phone after President Vladimir V. Putin’s aggrieved speech to the nation on Monday that all but threatened Ukraine with war. Russian is widely used throughout large parts of Ukraine and it is not unusual for people to easily and even unconsciously move back and forth between languages. She had been putting up posters that said “No to war” around the city. Outside of those major cities, a more negative picture emerges.
While the defence alliance, Nato, and the US warn of an imminent invasion, many people are still unconvinced that war will happen or that it would be to Russia's advantage. Since Russia annexed Ukraine's southern Crimea peninsula and backed militants in the eastern Donbas region in 2014, there's been no real let-up in fighting, cyber-attacks and misinformation. " https://bagge-albrechtsen.mdwrite.net/bbc-radio-4-from-our-own-correspondent-what-do-russians-think-of-the-war-in-ukraine-1707339919 are measuring public attitudes that, more or less, coincide with how people will behave in public," he adds. "We must understand that polls show us not what people really think or really believe, but what they want to share," he says. Volkov told Inskeep that he's aware of the pitfalls with these polls, but they may still have valuable information to teach us.

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The situation is exacerbated by the fact that the older generation is drowning in propaganda and believes that Putin’s actions are justified. Al Jazeera spoke with five young Russians about their views on the invasion, and how the blowback has affected them. The vast majority of Ukrainians until recently had a positive image of Russia, but a growing number now have a critical or skeptical attitude to Russia. Russian is widely used throughout large parts of Ukraine and it is not unusual for people to easily and even unconsciously move back and forth between languages.


A Ukrainian soldier from the 68th Brigade on Tuesday in a trench 500 yards from Russian positions in Ukraine’s eastern Luhansk region.Credit... Russian companies could end up cutting hours or stopping production as sanctions bite. As well as their savings falling in value, many Russians are predicted to lose their jobs as the economy reels from being cut off from financial markets in the West. But by Monday customers of Russia's biggest state-backed bank, Sberbank, told BBC Russian they could not order cash via the app at all - they had to go to its office and sign a form to do so. On Sunday evening, when sanctions against Russian central bank reserves were announced, you could still use an app to order a dollar for up to 140 roubles, and a euro for up to 150.

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Some of the support is more passive, Botchkovar says, coming from Russian citizens who’ve placed their faith in Putin as a political leader, but who may not necessarily vocalize that support. The common thread, she says, is a deep distrust of the West, rooted in decades of state propaganda. His speech comes after weeks of speculation over whether the Kremlin would seize the occasion to announce an escalation in the war, says Mai’a Cross, Edward W. Brooke Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at Northeastern. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.


And other specialised apps, like Matlab (a programming and computing platform) and Coursera (an online course platform). Also, prices for some ordinary things, like cosmetics and food, have doubled, but in many cases, we have no alternative because there are no factories here that produce those products. Since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, an outcry has arisen around the world. On March 2, the UN voted overwhelmingly to approve a resolution demanding the end of the invasion, with only five countries opposing – Russia, Belarus, North Korea, Eritrea, and Syria. As the war rages on, thousands have been killed according to Ukrainian authorities and many more injured.


This is particularly true in the regions of Russia most heavily targeted by Putin’s mobilization. Some of the first data FilterLabs gathered after the invasion was from the republic of Buryatia, a mostly rural, underdeveloped region 3,700 miles from Moscow and bordering Mongolia. Many of those
drafted into the Russian army regardless of age, military experience and medical history come from ethnic minority dominant regions like Buryatia. In April, a national propaganda campaign created a positive spike in local sentiment in Buryatia towards the war that lasted for 12 days before reverting to pre-campaign levels.

I have never seen empty shelves in stores in the centre before. That is because its most avid proponents, and its most intractable opponents, will not change their minds. It will drive a wedge between families whose members fight, and those whose run for the border or curse the war. By siding with the more militant part of the pro-war camp, which has long demanded mobilisation, Mr Putin may force doubters to pick a side and thus polarise society. Because of everything escalating so rapidly, I’m anxious about whether I’ll have issues renewing it due to me being Russian.
And the chaos itself can backfire — or at least quickly diminish its effectiveness — when out of step with lived experience, further undermining legitimacy in the state. Considering all this, telling Russian men and their families that it is in their interest to fight, and die, in faraway Ukraine is a harder story to sell. In other words, Russians appear to be less and less influenced by propaganda from Moscow, especially when it clearly contradicts the struggles in their daily lives. As Putin’s war of choice inflicts personal costs on citizens, Russians seem less willing to swallow the state narratives that are delivered over state television, which remains the primary source of information for most Russians. Russian propaganda is good at manipulating public opinion.

In contrast, Ukraine’s three presidents since the 2004 Orange Revolution never organized anti-Russian media campaigns. I was planning to go see my family right about this time, but it doesn’t seem possible any more. But with the invasion of Ukraine, the dream of Russian collaboration in the project stalled, he says. These figures belied allegations of a Russophobic western Ukraine; only twenty percent of the public there held negative views of Russians.
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