Kirill Rogov on what Russians really think of the war in Ukraine

It's a chokehold - to use a judo term from his favourite sport. That a sledgehammer is now a positive symbol of Russian power in executions captured on camera and posted by MPs on Twitter. Polls suggest the majority of Russians, if not supporting the war, certainly do not oppose it. In Pskov, near the Estonian and Latvian borders, the atmosphere is gloomy and everyone pretends the war has nothing to do with them, I am told.

One man in his fifties said, “It is now prohibited by law to answer what you think about this topic. But the problem with measuring public opinion in a country under authoritarian rule and censorship, Botchkovar says, is that the data are highly imperfect. 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. 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. In addition, her group calls for greater control by prosecutors and human rights ombudsmen at recruitment points and for compulsory military service to be replaced by social services away from the frontlines.

Tatyana*, 28, from Moscow, currently in Germany – ‘My parents can justify the war in their heads. I can’t understand why’

Public opposition to the war can result in criminal prosecution, so people who are critical of the war and the regime are less likely to agree to speak to a pollster. This results in skewed samples and inflates the level of support for the war. In mid-March, Aleksei Miniailo, a former social entrepreneur and current opposition politician, oversaw another telephone survey with the aim of trying to capture the effects of fear and propaganda on survey data.

I got a government email saying that we had until March 14 to download all files from Instagram. We have VK (a Russian substitute for Facebook), but it’s not the same. It was rather cheap, but now I want to buy AirPods and they’re really expensive. They were 7,000 roubles and now cost more than 14,000 roubles. There aren’t long lines at ATMs any more, but we saw them a few days ago.

Katya, 21, Moscow – ‘I don’t attend protests. It’s too scary, the idea of dying or being locked up for life’

It could be their Soviet past, or the government propaganda that has been poured out for so many years, or just that there is too much fear and anxiety to actually allow the thought that the world is different from what they expect. Being far away from them helps because we try to prioritise keeping our relationship intact and caring for each other more than anything. Sometimes I can’t help but try to convince them, which obviously doesn’t work. For the record, they don’t support the war in general, they do want it to stop; however, they can justify it in their heads somehow. “I know activists from other countries and they support Russian activists, but they don’t understand how we can continue to live and work under the war and the current government. 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.

• “Although there is some evidence of fatigue, Ukrainians overall remain committed to winning the war,” Ray said.









• I saw this Banderite reality with my own eyes,” he said, using a disparaging term for Ukrainian nationalists, which is also occasionally used as an ethnic slur against Ukrainians living in Russia.









• The second narrative, prevalent on news programmes, emphasises that the “special military operation” in Ukraine is being conducted by professionals to liberate the Russian people of Donbas and other regions.









• However, the fear and pain of many households threatens to open a rift between the people and the Kremlin.









• This was a decline of almost five percentage points from 1989, reflecting in part an out-migration of Russians after the breakup of the Soviet Union.

For a few years, the unprecedented patriotic surge of 2014 served as symbolic compensation for the socioeconomic problems that had already begun. Russians lapped up the real and imaginary threats that were fed to them, and generally assessed military action as justified, defensive, and/or preventative. Russia has opened up at times after moments of calamity and catastrophe. This message has echoed down the centuries and brooks no dissent or prospect for change.

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• This was also known as the “mutually assured destruction” policy, which suggested that neither the United States or the Soviet Union would go to war because the ensuing nuclear battle would be devastating for both countries and the rest of the world.









• Many commentators declared that this rhetoric would undermine the fragile support of the majority for the war.









• In 2010, with the election of Viktor Yanukovych, Russian attitudes toward Ukraine dramatically improved, doubling to a 70 percent approval rating.









• Experts say that Russia wants to see increasing disillusionment in Ukraine as the war drags on.

Continued approval of the army and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, she added, are key to victory. One in two Ukrainians reported in Gallup’s survey that they struggle to afford food and shelter. Experts say that Russia wants to see increasing disillusionment in Ukraine as the war drags on. As for who is to blame for the current situation, in which more than 100,000 Russian soldiers are stationed at the border in a tense standoff with the Ukrainian and Western governments, Lena is unequivocal.

Russia responded by illegally annexing Crimea, a section of Ukraine that touches the Russian border on the Black Sea. Russia also supplied military personnel, mercenaries and other resources in support of a small but militant minority of pro-Russian separatists in the largely Russian-speaking cities of Donetsk and Luhansk in Ukraine’s east. More than 14,000 Ukrainians have died since 2014 in fighting in the Donbas. This man has a certain political style, to which most of the Russian population is already accustomed.

• War is a different matter altogether, though; in recent days, Russia has not seen any of the jubilation that accompanied the annexation of Crimea in 2014.









• 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.









• “Since we lived in Russia, the war affected us quite a lot.









• “Everyone has their own opinion but in general, I believe that children and teenagers should not directly express an ardent point of view about politics, and about the special military operation.









• Public opposition to the war can result in criminal prosecution, so people who are critical of the war and the regime are less likely to agree to speak to a pollster.