Notes

How Do Russians Feel About a War With Ukraine?
For most Russians, television remains the main source of the news. It is firmly controlled by the Kremlin and pumps out relentless war propaganda. Ukrainians are said to shell their own cities, and Russian troops are presented as liberators. Restrictions on reporting are increasingly severe, and access to almost all independent outlets is blocked or limited - or they censor themselves. For months, Russians of all political stripes tuned out American warnings that their country could soon invade Ukraine, dismissing them as an outlandish concoction in the West’s disinformation war with the Kremlin.


For that, I was named ‘Volunteer of the Year’ in my hometown of Odintsovo. “ https://desertoption93.bloggersdelight.dk/2024/02/01/opinion-here-are-3-ways-to-end-the-war-in-ukraine-one-might-actually-work/ has a very strange position – it seems that he simultaneously supports and does not support the special military operation. Overall, he’s always had nationalist views, so it’s not surprising. 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. Ukrainian attitudes toward Russia were stable until 2013, with positive attitudes ranging from 65 percent in the west to 93 percent in the east. These figures belied allegations of a Russophobic western Ukraine; only twenty percent of the public there held negative views of Russians.

Photos: Ukraine says it’s survived its ‘most difficult winter’
She asked Al Jazeera not to use her full name since she hopes to return home one day. After appealing “en masse” to the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian legislature, these women managed to meet with some deputies. “They often told us that we could solve this problem with vacations, and that was it,” she recalls. Those who are lucky go on vacation and those who are not, tough luck. It’s been over a year and some of the conscripts have not come home,” she complains.

Not surprisingly, the major shift in opinion took place after 2014. “My husband had already come here to work, and I arrived with our child as the shooting began,” she told Al Jazeera, adding that support from Russian authorities was not as forthcoming as she would have liked. 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. Although Ukraine is a much smaller country, it is strong patriotically. But everyone who wants to participate can easily find out about it. But it is difficult to determine how reliable these surveys are, in light of new crackdowns on free speech and dissent in Russia, where even the use of the word “war” to describe the invasion is now a crime.
“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. The economy hasn’t been stable for a long time and the sanctions haven’t gone away. Travel is hard – you can’t go anywhere with a Russian passport.

New Poll Reveals How Ukrainians Feel About War, Future
Putin ordered the first mobilization on September 21, 2022, despite the fact that, weeks earlier, the Kremlin itself denied that it had planned to take such a step. According to the Defense Ministry, the goal was to recruit 300,000 civilians, but the decree did not include a figure. The Kremlin called a halt to the mobilization in early 2023, but never issued another decree or document confirming the end of the process. The Russian government assured then that the president’s word was enough. I really cannot understand why Russians don’t have the right to eat in McDonald’s. Of course, that may be a strange example, but I just mean those of us who are against war still suffer from it.

Hundreds of thousands of Russians have left Russia, including me and my BBC Russian colleagues. I got a government email saying that we had until March 14 to download all files from Instagram. Shortly after the mobilization, Putin staged a meeting with several wives and mothers of servicemen who support his cause in Ukraine, although it later emerged that many of them had some connection with the government. Somewhat confusing the situation is the fact that most Ukrainians are able to speak or easily understand both Russian and Ukrainian. Ukrainians are deeply confident in their military, with approval ratings at a record high of 95%, according to Gallup. My feelings are mixed regarding the decision of our president.
Maybe Putin and his people know more and it’s really all justified. None of us wanted this war, and we stand in opposition to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s actions. At demonstrations, people are detained for several days or fined.

Ukraine-Russia crisis: What is the Minsk agreement?
One-quarter of respondents say they already feel the effect of those sanctions, according to Volkov. People who are from disadvantaged groups are suffering the most, he adds, because they don't have the resources to adapt. And as Russia's war in Ukraine continues, the U.S. and other Western allies are hitting it with more economic sanctions. He's the director of the Levada Center, an independent polling firm in Russia.

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. 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. 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. "The rouble (Russia's currency) will fall and people will have it really bad. So this must be avoided. It is not people's fault, but it will be ordinary people who will be hit," he said.
In contrast, Ukraine’s three presidents since the 2004 Orange Revolution never organized anti-Russian media campaigns. Ukrainians throughout this period have never held negative views of Russians and only because of Putin’s aggression have Ukrainian attitudes turned against the Russian state and its leaders. Ukrainian citizens—unlike Russians—distinguish between Russian leaders and state institutions, which three-quarters of them abhor, and the Russian people, whom a majority of Ukrainians continue to view positively. The analysis suggests that Russians, especially outside of Moscow, are not buying the propaganda as they once were.


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