Notes

Media in Russia: How do Russians get news about the war in Ukraine?
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.


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.

Ukraine’s chief spy argues that its security deal with Britain is a game-changer
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.

Images on social media have shown long queues forming at ATMs and money exchanges around the country in recent days, with people worried their bank cards may stop working or that limits will be placed on the amount of cash they can withdraw. You don’t know when your friends and family will be taken away for mobilisation. Many ordinary Russians decline to participate in polling for fear of government retribution—and those who do are likely to indicate higher levels of support for Putin for the same reason, Botchkovar says. In order to build climate models that can accurately predict what will happen to the Arctic in the future, scientists need measurements from across the Arctic. 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.

Many Russians Feel a Deep Unease Over Going to War
But the war has helped set new records - at one point on Monday a dollar cost 113 roubles and a euro, 127. "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. On Monday Russia more than doubled its interest rate to 20% in response to the sanctions after the rouble plunged to record new lows. The stock market remains closed amid fears of a massive share sell-off. "I also couldn't pay in a shop today - for the same reason." Among the most prominent outlets are the Meduza and Mediazona websites - both have been blocked in Russia and both are labelled as "foreign agents" by the Russian government.


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.


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.


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. "We are measuring public attitudes that, more or less, coincide with how people will behave in public," he adds. " https://etextpad.com/bb4azcgrzh 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.

Ilya (name changed), who is in his early 30s, has just finished paying off his mortgage in Moscow. It involves a military assault with air, sea and land forces being deployed in combination with sophisticated cyber attacks and relentless propaganda disseminated by conventional as well as social media. At demonstrations, people are detained for several days or fined. There is more variety of opinion in the press, but it still largely sticks to the Kremlin line. One is peddled by the best-known talk-show hosts who tell viewers that the “special operation” is part of Russia’s total and existential war with the West—which is, of course, hell-bent on obliterating Russia. To understand the nature and composition of the pro-war majority, you need to dig deeper.
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.

Russian information operations remain formidable in their ability to mobilize and leverage state resources. And if I am not imprisoned soon for speaking out against war, I want to try – together with like-minded people – to do everything I can to give our country hope for a peaceful future. "In the past – like, Soviet Union past – the data from this part of the world was also limited," says Vladimir Romanovsky, a permafrost expert at the University of Alaska Fairbanks who trained in Moscow. Some teenagers have been arrested for sabotaging railways, sharing anti-war memes on social media, and taking part in peace rallies – although actual criminal charges for under-18s are relatively rare. More than 14,000 Ukrainians have died since 2014 in fighting in the Donbas.
The invasion of Ukraine is just an expansion and escalation of the earlier hybrid war. “The conflict between Russia and Ukraine may last for several more years. I believe that the political system in Russia will be severely degraded in the coming years. Business, housing and community services, medicine, education – everything will sag.

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. I don’t support that view, but I do think we need some changes. In his mobilisation speech on September 21st, Mr Putin used choice rhetoric of the party of total war to persuade Russian citizens of the enemy’s proximity and the need to defend the motherland. The Kremlin is confronting a sensitive issue because the protesting women are the wives of the very people on whom the future of the Ukrainian war depends. Permafrost is the permanently frozen ground found across the Arctic.
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