Yabloko supporters outside the Russian Supreme Court, which decided whether the party should be barred from upcoming parliamentary elections (10 August 2026). Photo: Yevgeny Messman/TASS/Picture Alliance via DW
Following a nine-hour hearing, the Russian Supreme Court sided with the suit brought by the Motherland (Rodina) party and disqualified the Yabloko party’s federal list of candidates in the upcoming State Duma elections. Most of the plaintiffs’ claims concerned alleged copyright infringements in Yabloko’s campaign materials. In addition to these allegations against Yabloko, suspicions of “extremist” activity and foreign funding were also raised.
The case was heard by Judge Vyacheslav Kirillov, who has previously been involved in high-profile political trials. In particular, he ruled that the human rights organization Memorial was “extremist” and dismissed Alexei Navalny’s suit against the Federal Penitentiary Service and the wardens at the penal colony where he was imprisoned.
At least five hundred people gathered outside the Supreme Court building. They handed out apples [because yabloko means “apple” in Russian] and sang songs in support of the party. After the hearing concluded, security forces threatened the protesters with arrest and told the young people amongst them that they would be sent to a military enlistment office. Yabloko’s chair, Nikolai Rybakov, stated that the party had not broken the law and would appeal against the court’s decision within the five-day period stipulated by law.
“Moscow, 10 August 2026. Hundreds of people came to support the Yabloko party. Party chair Nikolai Rybakov had called on supporters to come to the Russian Supreme Court’s hearing of a lawsuit to disqualify the party from the elections. The suit was filed by the pro-Kremlin Motherland party. Alexei Zhuravlyov, Motherland party chair: ‘Freedom of speech is a word that would be good to shut up.’ The Yabloko party supports ending the war. Nikolai Rybakov: ‘We support the signing of a ceasefire agreement so that people stop getting killed.'”
Yabloko’s co-founder Grigory Yavlinsky wrote on Telegram that the authorities were afraid of the party’s campaign platform, which urged voters “to vote for peace, life, and liberty without fear,” because it is supported by an ever-growing number of people from across the political spectrum.
“Disqualifying a party with precisely this manifesto from the elections without any real grounds is a clear demonstration of the political system’s true nature,” he said.
DW has rounded up reactions to the court’s decision and asked experts what Yabloko’s disqualification means for the elections to the State Duma, which are slated for 18–20 September 2026.
Navalnaya: The Kremlin got scared and switched to ‘Plan B’
Motherland filed suit against Yabloko in the Supreme Court just as exiled Russian opposition politicians and cultural figures had publicly called on Russians to support Yabloko in the State Duma elections. Amongst those who had joined this appeal were Yulia Navalnaya, Lyubov Sobol, Ilya Yashin, writer Dmitry Bykov, and human rights activist Oleg Orlov.
After the court’s ruling was made public, Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of Anti-Corruption Foundation founder Alexei Navalny and the organization’s current leader, said that the Russian authorities had originally planned to let Yabloko run in the elections but not let it garner more than two percent of the vote. [Parties need to clear a five-percent threshold to be seated in the Duma.] Later, however, “the Kremlin got scared” and “switched to Plan B,” disqualifying the party, she opined.
“They saw something happening that they didn’t want to see: people are beginning to unite. It wasn’t even a matter of support for Yabloko. The fact of the matter is that millions of Russians have a chance to say what they really think about Putin and about the war,” Navalnaya wrote on Telegram, adding that the Anti-Corruption Foundation had its own “Plan B.”
Exiled politician Andrei Pivovarov, coordinator of the Russian Antiwar Committee’s Consuls project, told DW that the opposition did not regard their support of Yabloko as a way of achieving instant political change or ending the war. Rather, they wanted to demonstrate the scope of antiwar sentiments in Russian society.
“There are a dozen parties on the ballot who support the war and one that supports peace. Even if Yabloko was seated in the Duma, the war wouldn’t end. But it would show that there are many antiwar Russians,” Pivovarov said. He argued that Yabloko had become the symbol of protest voting and the public’s antiwar sentiments wouldn’t vanish with the party’s disqualification from the elections.
Why did the authorities want to let Yabloko stand in the elections?
Political analyst Ivan Preobrazhensky, speaking to DW, suggested that Yabloko’s removal from the race could have been the result of “Kremlin bungling” or a power struggle amongst various influential factions. One of his theories is that a security forces bloc linked to the FSB may have backed Yabloko as a counterweight to New People, which is seen as the pet project of Sergei Kiriyenko, the first deputy head of the presidential administration. According to another theory, Kiriyenko himself was attempting once again to generate the appearance of political competition, but underestimated the strength of antiwar sentiment.
According to Preobrazhensky, the authorities have underestimated the number of antiwar Russians who are willing to rally behind any political force advocating an end to the war. He noted that even official opinion polls point to significant support for this. He believes that Yabloko’s eligibility to stand in the elections had been agreed in advance, but the rise in support for the party alarmed the authorities.
Political analyst Ilya Grashchenkov wrote on his Telegram channel that the Supreme Court’s ruling could lead to a rise in the poll ratings of the mainstream opposition parties. According to him, Yabloko was initially allowed to stand in the election to act as a spoiler for New People: the assumption was that the votes of antiwar voters would be split between the two parties and thus would not go to a single political force calling for an end to the war.
“We’re expecting VTsIOM’s poll results in a week’s time. I reckon part of the opposition will see a bump again,” he wrote.
Political analyst Mikhail Vinogradov also expressed surprise at Yabloko’s removal from the ballots. In his view, the party’s presence would have enabled the authorities to announce a modest outcome at the polls for it, present this as evidence of public support for the war, and provoke fresh disillusionment amongst antiwar Russians. Furthermore, the campaign would have helped to single out new politically engaged citizens. Even if Yabloko had secured a mandate in the State Duma, Vinogradov believes, this could have been used to demonstrate to voters the futility of the party’s presence in parliament.
“There are certainly advantages to Yabloko’s not being registered. But the authorities are keeping this under wraps for the time being,” he concluded.
What does Yabloko’s ouster from the elections mean?
Yabloko’s ouster will complicate matters for independent election observers since the party loses the right to dispatch its own representatives to polling places, Roman Udot, an expert on elections in Russia, argues. In the past, Yabloko eagerly provided passes to independent observers, although they can still get accreditation from other parties, including the Communists, New People, and even United Russia, Udot adds.
“Besides, it’s not a certainty that a schoolteacher who back in the day would help to rig elections because she was told that this was how her school would get moneys for repairs will behave the same way when her husband or son could be called up for combat. People’s interests are at stake here: it’s every man for himself, especially with all the talk about a mobilization,” says Udot.
Udot argues that the involvement in the campaign of New People, with its proposal to end the war in Ukraine, is significant, even if the party is controlled by the Kremlin: politicians are forced to respond to public sentiment.
“We may see a shift from hawks to lesser hawks, and then to doves,” says Udot.
Furthermore, in rigged elections, it is not only the official result that matters but also the public’s impression of the election campaign, he says.
“It all depends on the mood of the populace. If the people show that the wind is changing and that there is a certain desire, and people start casting their votes for a particular stance, then some politician will catch the wind and capitalize on it.”
Do the authorities have a grip on the situation?
Elections to the Duma are taking place amidst growing anxiety in Russian society, Margarita Zavadskaya, a senior researcher fellow at the Finnish Institute of Foreign Affairs, reminded DW in an interview. She pointed out that FOM (Public Opinion Foundation) reported that 57% of the Russians it polled in late July were anxious about the state of affairs in their country, the highest percentage recorded by the pollsters since the military mobilization of autumn 2022. Although FOM’s polls should be treated skeptically, an uptick like this at the height of summer testifies to the fact that “something is out of whack,” Zavadskaya argues.
Zavadskaya sees a connection between the public’s dour moods and the increasingly frequent Ukrainian drone attacks, the deaths of civilians and warehouse fires caused by these attacks, and rumors of a new military mobilization. According to her, the summer of 2026 has been the most anxious since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. At the same time, the numbers of the most bellicose pro-war Russians have likely been dropping.
Anxiety is mounting in the Kremlin as well, since it is the authorities who have the most at stake in the election results, the political analyst argues.
“The ideal scenario for the Kremlin is boring elections with a sparse turnout in which nothing happens. But we can see that this scenario is now unlikely to materialize, because what’s happening on the eve of the elections doesn’t look normal, nor does it suggest that the authorities have a grip on the situation,” Zavadskaya told DW.
Statement of (partial) interest: Ages ago, in another life, I took part in a protest rally led by Ilya Yashin, then head of Yabloko’s youth wing, on Nevsky Prospekt in Petersburg. Also, my boon companion is personallly well acquainted with current Yabloko party chair Nikolai Rybakov who, they fear, will soon be arrested and imprisoned for his temerity. ||||| trr
Laura Loomer (left) is an American far-right conspiracist and influencer from Arizona who has suddenly (supposedly) seen the light on Ukraine after actually visiting the country that has endured an unprovoked Russian invasion for the last four and a half years. Lily Lynch (right) is a leftyish American foreign affairs writer from California who, apparently, does not need to see a place with her own eyes to give her readers the all-knowing lowdown on what’s happening there. Whose account of the Ukraine-Russia war rings truer to you?
Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s speech at NATO’s Defence Industry Forum in Ankara earlier this month was a hymn to drone warfare. Drones, the Ukrainian president proclaimed, had heralded ‘revolutionary changes in the very nature of war’ – as significant as the machine gun in the First World War, or as the modern tank in the Second. ‘Disruptive’ drone tech had allowed Ukraine to increase dramatically the number of Russian casualties, intercept Russia’s Shahed UAVs and hit targets as far away as Siberia. Recent attacks had succeeded in blackening the skies over Moscow and striking oil refineries 2,700 km away in Omsk. The country had transformed itself into a ‘drone superpower’, in the words of the Atlantic Council. Before 2022, there were just seven domestic drone manufacturers – today, there are over 500. And now, as restrictions on drone exports are being lifted, Ukraine will soon be selling them to the world.
The man most responsible for putting drones at the centre of Ukraine’s war effort has been the telegenic 35-year-old, now former Defence Minister, Mykhailo Fedorov. This much-hyped tech wunderkind has acquired a following among both patriotic liberals at home and Atlanticists in the West. He has helped promote Ukraine as a kind of ‘start-up nation’ – a high-tech defence industrial powerhouse forged in war. When barely in his thirties, he was appointed Minister of Digital Transformation, where he was responsible for the ‘state in a smartphone’ initiative – which moved government services onto a USAID-funded app called Diiya. Though beloved by the liberal NGO set, Palantir-backed Fedorov has also learned to speak MAGA’s language; in January, he announced his ministry’s objective to kill 50,000 Russians per month, explaining it would ‘make the cost of war for Russia one it cannot sustain, thereby forcing peace through strength’.
In the weeks leading up to the NATO summit, Western media reports alleged that Ukraine had turned the tide in its favour. Russia was in trouble. The narrative was reminiscent of the ‘spring counteroffensive’ of 2023, much hyped in Western media – a supposedly transformational Ukrainian battlefield push that never quite materialized and cost tens of thousands of lives. In Ankara, the latest reversal of fortune was attributed to Ukraine’s drone tech capabilities, its thriving defence industry and its innovative young leadership, who apparently ran the country less like a post-Soviet state and more like a Silicon Valley start-up.
Just one week later, however, this optimistic story began to fall apart. Zelenskyy abruptly dismissed Fedorov, a move that left many feeling furious and betrayed. Fedorov’s loyalists responded by excoriating Zelenskyy on social media and assembling in Kiev, Lviv and Odessa, holding signs bearing messages like ‘Hands off Fedorov’ and ‘Stop Sabotaging Victory’. Ukraine’s supporters in the West did not hide their opposition to the decision either. ‘Firing Fedorov, one of the smartest, most competent and innovative ministers in all of Europe, is one of the dumbest things Zelenskyy has done’, Estonia’s former president Toomas Hendrik Ilves wrote on X. A consensus formed among the Atlanticist commentariat: Zelenskyy had sided with his sclerotic ‘Soviet’ generals – particularly Russian-born commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskyi – against an energetic young reformer. After several days of virulent backlash, Zelenskyy responded by dismissing Syrskyi too.
The decision to remove Fedorov forced a simmering Ukrainian political crisis into the public eye. In Ankara, NATO officials were intent on depicting Russia – and only Russia – as the country in dire political and economic straits. At one briefing, I listened to a senior NATO official speak of possible tensions within the Russian political elite. These days, he said, they look outside their windows and see oil refineries in flames from Ukrainian drone attacks. This, he asserted, must be having a psychological effect, and resentment towards Putin was likely mounting. A fracture could be coming any day now. The Russian economy, meanwhile, was ‘in the worst state it’s been in for decades’. He recited a litany of grim statistics: the federal deficit was now 2.3 times what it was during the same period last year, the economy was now 70 per cent security-related expenditures, which came at the expense of the regular economy and would be ‘very hard to reverse’. And despite rising oil prices due to the war on Iran, Russia would still have to cut non-military spending by 10 per cent this year.
Russia was also reportedly performing poorly on the battlefield and any progress it was making came at an enormous cost. According to the NATO official’s estimates, there had been between 1.3 and 1.5 million Russian casualties in the war, and between 30,000 and 35,000 Russians were now being killed each month. The military was now ‘increasingly relying on convicts, indebted citizens and foreigners’ to fill its ranks. Russia’s territorial gains had also been ‘far less steady’ in recent months: its forces were now purportedly advancing at just 3.79 sq km per day, down from a reported 16 sq km last year. Another morbid statistic touted at the summit was the alleged average life expectancy of a Russian soldier: thanks to Ukraine’s drones, I was told, the average Russian recruit only lived between 20 and 30 minutes at the front.
Listening to all this, I thought about what I’d heard [sic] about life in Russia. I was certainly aware of the mounting wartime pain. I knew there were now petrol shortages in parts of the country, though these are partly seasonal, and that this has meant long waits outside stations. Whereas the war had previously been experienced by most Russians as a distant conflict – only seen on social media or television – the drone attacks on Russian oil refineries had brought the war home. But the idea that this would inevitably provoke a major anti-government backlash didn’t quite follow. Videos have even surfaced on Russian social media showing people drinking and dancing as they waited in long queues for petrol. As one commentator put it, ‘coronavirus divided us, but petrol shortages brought us together’. The domestic problems were all very real and getting worse, but Russians appeared to be weathering them, at least for now. Prophesies of the Russian economy’s imminent collapse had been issued for years, but had all come to nothing.
Polls from inside Russia also hint at a more stable situation than that depicted at the NATO summit. Russia experts always caution readers to be sceptical of polls from inside the country, but even so, the results suggest that at least some of the graver prognostications might be exaggerated. According to a survey by the independent Levada Center, Putin’s popularity is indeed in decline, but as of May, as many as 79 per cent of Russians polled still said they approved of his performance. Only 15 per cent said they disapproved. In the same survey, 74 per cent of Russians said they supported their country’s actions in Ukraine. (Still, some 60 per cent of Russians reported that they favoured peace negotiations to end the war, and only 30 per cent said they wanted to continue fighting it.) Even adjusting for a degree of wartime self-censorship, these numbers do not exactly hint at a coming cataclysm.
But the question that most nagged at me throughout the summit was: what about Ukraine? The assessment of Russia’s position in the war included a host of criteria: a survey of the situation on the homefront, elite political fractures, the economy, the demography of its soldiers. Yet Ukraine’s position was portrayed according to a single hopeful indicator, its success in drone warfare.
According to a recent Gallup poll (one that was largely buried in the Western press), Ukrainians are even less enthusiastic about fighting this war than Russians are. Less than one in four adults (24 per cent) say Ukraine should keep fighting until it wins the war, while 66 per cent say Ukraine should seek to negotiate an end to the war as soon as possible. And while NATO officials were eager to tout staggering casualty figures for Russia in Ankara, there was naturally far less said about Ukraine’s dead – unless they could be presented in terms of a favourable ‘kill ratio’ with Russia. According to the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (which receives funding from the US government, Lockheed Martin and NATO among others) the Ukrainian military has suffered between 125,000 and 150,000 fatalities. However, some believe the actual number is higher.
As NATO officials look for cracks in the Kremlin matrix, there are plenty to worry about in Ukraine. In addition to the rupture between Fedorov and the military brass, a ‘spectacular’ corruption scandal has implicated members of Zelenskyy’s inner circle, part of which involves corruption in drone procurement. Meanwhile, the ‘stable stagnation’ of the Ukrainian economy also rests on relatively fragile foundations – continued support from Western partners. Often missing from Western wartime reporting is the brutal economic reality of everyday life in Ukraine: the number of Ukrainians living below subsistence levels has increased dramatically in wartime; while Russians have been inconvenienced in this conflict, most haven’t faced the same material devastation.
The Ukrainian armed forces may be an even worse state than their Russian adversaries. A transition to a corps-based command structure last year may have aligned Ukraine with NATO standards, but no amount of restructuring can change the fundamentals. The average age of a Ukrainian soldier is now 45. Mobilization remains a persistent problem. One of the reasons cited for Fedorov’s dismissal was his failure to fix this (ever the tech solutionist, Fedorov had reportedly pushed for a ‘digitalization’ of mobilization). The brutal practice of ‘busification’ – whereby military age men are snatched off the street – continues to inspire loathing. Reports regularly surface of forcibly conscripted men being beaten or killed. Unsurprisingly, Ukraine is suffering a desertion crisis. Though the exact figures were classified last year, in January, Fedorov said that 200,000 Ukrainian soldiers had gone AWOL.
The Russian armed forces may be filled with convicts and debtors, but they still haven’t had to resort to conscription[sic], while the Ukrainian side is partially composed of men who are middle-aged and don’t want to fight. Ukraine also increasingly relies on foreign fighters; while Russia has recruited hapless Africans to serve as cannon fodder, Ukraine now employs thousands of recruits from Colombia, Brazil and various European countries, designated as ‘volunteers’ to get around anti-mercenary laws. And there remains the fundamental problem of massive asymmetry: Russia still has Ukraine outmanned. Ukraine has attempted to make up for this difference with drones, but this has only succeeded in slowing the pace of Russian advances.
The image of a Ukraine filled with patriotic liberals eager to fight a high-tech war until total Russian collapse is a fiction. In reality, the majority of both Russians and Ukrainians want negotiations to end the war now. Only a minority want to continue fighting until their side’s most maximalist aims are met. Absent the propaganda of a youth-driven drone tech revolution in war, Ukraine looks in a remarkably similar situation to Russia: two countries hurtling toward demographic oblivion, in a conflict directed by a profiteering political elite and fought in part by the unwilling, the coerced, the foreign and the old. At the NATO summit, however, the alliance continued to promote its PR-manufactured image of Ukraine, through selective statistics and polite obfuscation.
Laura Loomer became infamous for spreading conspiracy theories online. Now, as she travels across Ukraine to see the damage inflicted by Russia in its years-long war, she wants to admit that she fell for some falsehoods of her own.
A close ally of President Donald Trump, Loomer has completely reversed her longtime criticism of Ukraine and is urging fellow conservatives to be wary of Moscow’s propaganda, which she blames for duping large swaths of the American right.
“You don’t need to listen to a podcaster and let them influence your opinion about a country. You can look at those facts yourself,” she told the Associated Press in Kyiv shortly after returning from a trip close to the front line in Ukraine’s east. The interview was supposed to take place in Loomer’s hotel, but it had to be moved to the building’s underground bomb shelter as the city faced another ballistic missile attack.
Loomer has remained influential with Trump despite not having an official role, and she said they spoke over the phone after she sat down with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. She also said that she expects to meet with Trump after returning from her trip.
Loomer’s turnaround on Ukraine has been welcomed by the country’s leaders, whose relationships with Trump have been strained at times. But it has also stirred confusion, surprise and suspicion in the United States. She continues to insist that Ukraine is not paying for her travels.
As Trump and Zelenskyy prepare to meet on Tuesday in Washington, Loomer said it’s clear that her trip has already made a difference, refocusing attention on the war as Congress debates new sanctions intended to punish Russia.
“It’s looking good for Ukraine, right?” she said. “Going into this meeting next week at the Oval Office is looking pretty good.”
Loomer says she was ‘bamboozled’ to oppose Ukraine
Loomer had spent years minimizing the war and amplifying Russian propaganda until she made a dramatic reversal this week.
“I’ve come to realize I was bamboozled by Russian propaganda and I came to believe a lot of untrue things about Ukraine. I used to think that this was a country full of Nazis,” Loomer told Zelenskyy as she interviewed him for her show on Rumble, an online video platform.
Loomer blamed her indoctrination on getting banned by American social media platforms, leading her to try Telegram, where Russian media is widely shared.
“The Russians,” she added, “are very good at capitalizing on people’s rage. And I was very angry,” she said, recounting her feelings about the 2020 election, which she falsely maintains was stolen from Trump despite all evidence to the contrary.
She said her change in perspective had been gradual as she started to see podcasters like Tucker Carlson “turn on President Trump” while having their rhetoric amplified by Russian sources.
Loomer, who casts herself as an independent journalist, told the AP she believed her reversal was already changing minds within Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement.
“Oh, 100%,” she said. “I’ve received messages all day from different people and media and politics and people just who follow me online who said, ’Wow, I didn’t realize how much we’ve been lied to.’ ‘Wow you really opened my eyes.’”
Loomer was welcomed with open arms
Ukrainian officials seemed to recognize the opportunity of winning over an ardent Trump ally with a large online following. In addition to her interview with Zelenskyy, Loomer had audiences with top Ukrainian officials and the country’s chief rabbi.
“It takes courage to come to Ukraine and not be deterred by Russian propaganda or air raid sirens,” Zelenskyy’s office wrote on social media.
“Laura is very powerful and she’s a very authoritative in the U.S., so I hope that everything she has seen by her own eyes will help her to spread the truth when she is back at the U.S.,” Tetyana Berezhna, the deputy prime minister and Ukrainian minister of culture told the AP. “I do really hope and I believe that her visit will have a huge impact on relations with the U.S. administration.”
While some have tried to downplay Loomer’s influence with the president, he has often followed her advice. She occasionally traveled with him during the 2024 campaign, and last year he purged his National Security Council staff after she raised concerns about their loyalty in an Oval Office meeting.
Trump appears to be tracking Loomer’s trip, sharing video of her conversation with Zelenskyy on social media.
“Very good!!!” he wrote on Thursday evening.
The conspiracist denounces conspiracy theories
Loomer has a long history of spreading conspiracy theories. She once shared a video that called 9/11 an “inside job” and amplified a lie about Haitian immigrants eating dogs and cats in Ohio, which Trump went on to repeat during a presidential debate with Kamala Harris.
Although Loomer may have changed her mind about Russia’s invasion, her bigoted views have not budged.
But in the interview, she bemoaned how influential podcasters can spread misinformation.
“They have been able to warp people’s minds to the point where people aren’t even capable of analyzing a subject with common sense anymore because they want to depend on these personalities to give them the opinion that they think they should have,” she said, calling the situation “a major national security threat.”
She said she thinks that “information war” has “the potential to be more destructive than any kinetic war that our country may ever face” and called on the Trump administration to take the threat of Russian propaganda, foreign interference and influence operations more seriously.
“I think that some of our leaders are being influenced by propaganda,” she said.
The White House has routinely downplayed the role of Moscow’s influence, especially because Trump has long chaffed at investigations showing that Russia worked to boost his 2016 candidacy.
Loomer has said repeatedly that Ukraine did not finance her trip and insisted she had traveled in her own capacity.
“I can guarantee you I wasn’t paid by anybody. I certainly wasn’t paid by the government of Ukraine to come here,” she said.
“If it’s fake, why did I risk my life? I’m in a bomb shelter right now. I barely slept this week,” she said.
Ana Tavadze and Dachi Imedadze, members of Georgia’s Shame Movement. Photo: 60 MINUTES
Ana Tavadze: We’re going in with a government that’s completely corrupt, a government that’s pro-Russian, clearly anti-Western, clearly does not really care about what the majority of the population wants and needs.
Ana Tavadze and Dachi Imedadze are members of the Shame Movement – a group with thousands of young followers working towards Georgia’s entry into the European Union.
Ana Tavadze: If Russia wins, it means loss of freedom, loss of everything that we fought for in the past 30 years basically. It’s a fight for values, it’s a fight for where you want to stand in this big fight for democracy.
Dachi Imedadze: As soon as the West in any form, be it the U.S. partnership, be it the European Union, is not represented in this country, Russia will fill the void right away.
They say the influx of Russians is already changing the face of Georgia.
Ana Tavadze: What are they doing, if we look at it? They’re buying apartments. They’re buying private property. They are opening up businesses. Their actions changed — Georgian economy.
Dachi Imedadze: The Russians are buying apartments here in every 33 minutes. They’re purchasing a piece of land in every 27 minutes. And they’re registering a business in every 26 minutes. So, I think we are on the brink of very dangerous situation here in Georgia.
According to public records, Russians have registered more than 20,000 businesses in Georgia over the last two years. And launched five new Russian-only schools, none of which are licensed by Georgia’s department of education.
Russians have driven rent up nearly 130%, prices for everything from food to cars have gone up 7%. over 100,000 Georgians have left the country because many of them can’t afford to live here anymore.
Sharyn Alfonsi: I’ve heard this described as a quiet invasion.
Dachi Imedadze: Quiet invasion, yeah. There is a risk of the economic diversions. There is a risk of military intervention. And there’s a risk of — Georgia’s statehood being destroyed.
Emmanuil Lisnif, George Smorgulenko and Pavel Bakhadov don’t look like much of a threat.
All Russians in their twenties, they fled their country for fear of being drafted or imprisoned for speaking out against Putin.
George Smorgulenko, Emmanuil Lisnif and Pavel Bakhadov are all Russians living in Georgia. Photo: 60 MINUTES
They now live in Georgia and work at this Russian-owned comedy club in Tbilisi.
Emmanuil Lisnif: I try and said ‘I’m against the war in Russia. I was beaten. and after that going to prison three times.’
Sharyn Alfonsi: So three times you went to jail?
Emmanuil Lisnif: Yes, yes three times.
Pavel Bakhadov: I believe and I know that Russians actually against the war.
Sharyn Alfonsi: You think that most Russians are against the war?
Emmanuil Lisnif: Yeah, just scared, really scared.
Sharyn Alfonsi: Have any of you had any aggression towards you because you’re Russian?
Pavel Bakhadov: Actually I have a big writing on the wall. It’s the biggest thing I see from my window, just big ‘Russians go home.’
There is no subtlety in spray paint… anti-Russian graffiti blankets the city along with support for Ukraine.
This text is based on interviews I did as part of the Hidden Opinions public opinion polling project, which I launched in 2022 and continued in 2023 and 2024. I spoke with dissenting Russians — with those who oppose the current regime and its military actions against Ukraine, both those who have stayed in Russia and those who have left the country. My youngest respondent at the time of the [first] survey was sixteen years old, while the oldest was seventy-two years old. These people hail from a wide range of professions and walks of life, but what they have in common is their categorical opposition to the actions of the Russian authorities. In just two years, I have interviewed 154 people for this project, some of whom I have spoken with two or three times.
In 2022, all of my respondents — both those who had left the country and those who stayed — espoused anti-war views and expressed a negative attitude toward the Kremlin’s policies. However, in 2023, about a year and a half after the war’s outbreak, a group amongst my sources in Russia emerged. Small at first, but constantly growing, it consisted of people who had changed their negative attitudes toward the war and/or the government.
This does not mean that such changes are impossible among those Russians who have left the country. Amidst a full-scale war, research based on representative samples is hampered by the fact that the most accessible respondents are those who have agreed to be interviewed as a result of self-selection. This is a significant limitation to the project.
My research is qualitative, not quantitative, meaning that it would be wrong to speak of a particular percentage of anti-war Russians who have become pro-war. I think it is important to study and understand how views are transformed and what triggers them to change. It is the subject of this text.
***
The sociologist and philosopher Zygmunt Bauman, experimenting with means of gauging the conservatism–to–radicalism spectrum, asked his students to do the following exercise. They were shown twenty drawings, the first one depicting a dog, the last one depicting a cat; in between, the dog gradually shed its canine features and turned into the cat. It was vital that the researcher record the moment when the test subjects had doubts about what exactly was depicted in the picture, when they realized that the dog had mutated irreversibly. In a sense, I have been doing something similar, trying to record the moment at which anti-war or anti-Putin views have been transformed into pro-war or pro-government views.
I have observed that such a change in views depends on a number of extrinsic factors, and the more such factors that are combined, the more likely it is that the person’s stance will change. In addition, a great deal is determined by an individual’s (psychological, social, etc.) resources. Finally, inconsistent views play an important role in transformation and adaptation. In recent years, sociologists have increasingly noted that people often pursue mutually exclusive goals simultaneously without noticing the contradictions in their own behavior.
New rationalizations, disillusionment and loneliness
The gradual realization that the war is a long-term affair, combined with Alexei Navalny’s sudden death in a penal colony, has had a considerable impact on those resisting the regime within Russia. One can swim against the current, but it requires a considerable amount of strength, something not everyone possesses. It is difficult to be amongst the minority for years on end, to conceal one’s views and live in fear of being reported to the authorities. Respondents have thus begun reformatting [sic] their attitude to reality, explaining events in a new light and providing new rationalizations.
Failing to receive the expected support from the outside world or the possibility of a dignified workaround, some of my respondents eventually chose non-resistance to the regime, which in some cases has transmogrified into full-fledged loyalty.
“I don’t want to go to prison, I don’t want to play the rebel. I just want to live. If they send me to listen to ‘Exorcist TV,’ I’ll go without question. If they tell me to go to a [pro-war] concert, I’ll go. I’m not trying to convince anyone of anything anymore. I’m tired. I can only accept it and live the life I have.”
This stance is not directly bound up with support for the war or the regime. Rather, it indicates fatigue and the lack of strength to resist. If the circumstances shift in a direction more in keeping with their own values, these people will gladly slough off the “burden of adaptation.”
It is worth noting that, over the last year, many of my respondents have stopped following the news and focused on their daily lives. There are respondents who, despite the troubling times, have decided to have children. This is also a way of disconnecting from current events.
Another important factor influencing the change of respondents’ views is the narrowing of their circles of trust. Fearing denunciation, dissenters avoid making new contacts. Afraid of being alone and unwilling to live in fear, uncertainty and/or exile, they then join the majority.
The distance between Russians who have left Russia and those who have stayed in Russia has grown greater with every passing year. In 2022–2023, when I asked my respondents about opposition members who had left Russia, they most often would say nothing or would limit themselves to brief remarks along the lines of “We still watch them on YouTube, but they have less and less sense of what’s happening at home.”
Expressions of resentment and frustration have become more frequent in my interviews in 2024. My sources have said that the opposition often engages in wishful thinking and plays fast and loose with the facts, and that the west does not always act logically and decently.
Consequently, previously opposition-minded people have chosen to abandon painful and exhausting self-reflection in favor of loyalty to the regime. This helps them to get on with their lives, normalizing both the war and the political crackdowns. As one respondent put it, “Since the opposition and the west cannot be trusted, we will make friends with Putin. He is an ogre, but he is our own ogre.”
“Western countries seem to be doing everything to help Putin’s propaganda machine. I was quite surprised when I heard Angela Merkel say that all our negotiations were just a smokescreen: we wanted to let Ukraine catch its breath, and the negotiations were just a deception. That is, the leader of one of the largest countries in Europe openly says: a) we can’t be trusted in any negotiations, and b) we have conspired to deceive you. […] Putin’s propaganda machine skillfully makes use of this. But the point is not that the propaganda machine is using it, it’s that it is reality. As a normal person, a question occurs to me: if they treat us this way, [then] we are their enemies. After such statements, the ‘west’ is regarded as the enemy of Russians, and, accordingly, their enemy — Putin — is our friend.”
Those respondents who have changed their views on the war emphasize that when the west blocked their bank cards and accounts, when they heard what Ukrainians (including their relatives and friends) were saying about Russians and how they called for killing them, they decided that the current regime, whatever it was like, was less hostile to them on balance.
Tired of guilt, shame, disappointment and indignation, they have essentially chosen peace by joining the majority and accepting the existing rules: don’t discuss politics, don’t speak out publicly, swear to the values that the government declares. This choice seems reasonable to them in a situation in which no political activism is possible anyway, and the political crackdown machine is only picking up steam.
This strategy ensured material well-being and career success for some of my respondents. For example, some mid-level specialists in the IT sector received good positions and salaries, while for other people the involvement of their relatives in the war has been a means of social mobility and a source of access to material goods. Still others have benefited from the war by arranging parallel imports, etc.
Another factor contributing to the shift in sentiment from anti-Putin to pro-government has been the radicalization and polarization of society.
“A sharp delineation between ‘black and white’ leads to the opposite outcome. Any attempts to express doubts about the actions of the Ukrainian or western side are automatically regarded both inside and outside [Russia] as pro-Putin behavior, the outcome of brainwashing, etc. The other side appears infallible and beyond criticism.
“If you criticize the west’s actions in any way, you are automatically pigeonholed as a ‘Putinist.’ It makes me feel like saying: if that’s how you treat me, well, to hell with you, chalk me up as a Putin supporter.”
The state of rejection and isolation provokes protests amongst some people: since the west condemns them for staying in Russia, they “will go the full mile and become real orcs.”
The mechanisms by which feelings of rejection are transformed into collective pride have been described by researchers and are not unique to Russia. These feelings reinforce nationalist sentiments and contribute to the strengthening of authoritarian regimes.
Emotional dilemma
Speaking about the change in their views from anti-war to pro-war, my respondents noted that in one way or another they were surrounded by people who had suffered in the war: classmates or school friends who had been drafted to the front or had volunteered for combat, their children, colleagues, and mere acquaintances. Telling them straight to their face that their sacrifices were in vain had become both emotionally more difficult and more dangerous. To maintain relationships and friendships, my sources generally had to listen in silence to their acquaintances’ stories about what they had experienced and seen at the front. And if they were people who mattered to them, it was impossible not to sympathize with them.
We should understand that Russians who initially opposed the war and the regime but remained in Russia feel definitely closer to those who went to the front or delivered humanitarian aid there than to those who have left the country. They are “in the same boat” as their relatives, friends, and colleagues. They feel compassion for them.
“When we were teenagers, all sorts of things happened. If the guys were caught [by the authorities], I would perjure myself and lie in all sorts of ways. Later I could tell them what I actually thought of them, but I wouldn’t abandon them. That’s not the way that blokes do things. Now I realize with my head that they are wrong a hundred times over, but they are my boys, I am on their side. And even if I am against the war, I cannot be against them.”
Propaganda equates anti-war sentiment with betrayal, and it paints people who espouse such views as accomplices of Russia’s enemies, who want to kill as many Russians as possible. This causes a very heavy feeling, my respondents note.
Meanwhile, the state softens such emotional blows by offering loyal citizens new benefits and additional material and social goods, free concerts, and beautiful and comfortable urban environments, demonstrating concern for people in general and for those returning from war in particular. “People-centeredness” has become the buzzword in the PR strategies of many employers and officials throughout Russia.
Russians who are concerned about their neighbors also respond to calls for help front-line soldiers, because amidst war and external isolation it is these people with whom, they say, they “share a common plight.” One of my respondents, overwhelmed by such sentimental feelings, volunteered for the army.
As a religious man, he hoped he would not face the need to kill others, but would be able to help “his boys” without bearing arms, because he “could not stand on the sidelines any longer.” If the need to kill arose, he would desert, my source had decided, explaining that he was emotionally prepared to be beaten up and go to prison.
Another type of people whom I have encountered more and more often are those whom researchers Maria Lipman and Michael Kimmage have characterized as anti-anti-war: these people do not necessarily support the war, but they strongly condemn or resent “unpatriotic” fellow citizens who do not support the Russian army or who even take the side of Ukraine.
Seeing soldiers returning from the front and watching the growing number of Russians killed in combat, my sources now often place the blame not on Putin or the Russian military, but on their compatriots who oppose continuing the war until Russia achieves total victory.
Ressentiment and the “demons” of propaganda
Propaganda has awakened ressentiment in some of my respondents. They have come to believe that this war is really about maintaining Russia’s status as a great power, which its enemies are trying to flout and rob. Such people believe it vital that Russia maintain its status as a victor, and they accept the state-imposed version of Russian history that asserts Russia’s greatness in all periods.
War, as happens under autocracies and dictatorships, is seen as the ultimate manifestation of the nation’s strength and vitality and a guarantee that its culture and traditions will be maintained. In conversations with me, my sources have repeatedly used the phrase “releasing demons,” referring to the fact that the current situation helps their acquaintances and themselves experience a sense of unity and superiority over the rest of the world, a sense of their own righteousness and chosenness.
Some respondents noted that the official rhetoric, concrete and catchy, seemed more acceptable to them than the verbose arguments and meaningless self-reflections of the opposition.
Meanwhile, according to my respondents, the number of anti-war-minded Russians today is decreasing. Since Navalny’s death, I have often heard in interviews that every second or third person in the orbit of my sources has changed their views.
It is difficult to say how strong this trend really is. I would estimate that a third of those who unequivocally opposed the war and the regime when I spoke to them [initially] have changed their views, but of course these numbers are in need of supplemental verification, which is not easy to accomplish today. There are probably also people who have switched their pro-war patriotic views to oppositional ones, but I assume that we hear the voices of these people even less frequently.
Respondents who are in a state of uncertainty and/or in the course of switching their views feel the need for support, at least informational support. They need arguments explaining that anti-war sentiments are not a betrayal and that the current war is destroying Russia, not restoring its greatness. But they also acknowledge that such an argument would hardly convince them under the current circumstances. For now, the only thing they think they can do is to maintain their sanity and adapt to reality in order to live to see better days.
***
The Russian regime has proven to be “smarter” and more adaptive than Russian opposition activists and western democracies thought, but this does not mean there is no point or possibility of supporting by any means possible those who have remained in Russia and are still resisting the regime or straddling the fence. One way or another, positive change in Russia is impossible without their involvement.
Popular opinion polls show that the majority of Russians support the military action in Ukraine. Researchers, however, continue to argue that society’s support for the war is much lower than these figures suggest. In their new study “Perception of the conflict with Ukraine among Russians: testing the spiral of silence hypothesis,” V.B. Zvonovsky and A.V. Khodykin, drawing on Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann’s “spiral of silence” model, argue that many opponents of the war are not willing to voice their opinion, believing that it is unpopular and fearing social disapproval.
Noelle-Neumann argues that before people with a “limited interest in politics” decide to voice their opinion on a politically significant matter, they assess the risk of being condemned by others. The spiral of silence “twists” as follows: people who are afraid of being isolated due to the unpopularity of their opinion refrain from voicing it → this opinion is thus heard less and less often in society → people thus increasingly think that their own opinion is not popular → they are thus even less likely to be willing to voicing it.
Zvonovsky and Khodykin discovered that the spiral of silence actually does have a great impact on discussion of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict in Russian society. They were able to verify this by doing a nationwide telephone survey (N = 1977) using Noelle-Neumann’s “train test.” The “train test” measures the willingness of “adherents of a particular stance on a socially significant matter to openly voice it by discussing it on a train with a random fellow passenger.” Supporters of the more popular stance, in their opinion, are more likely to openly voice it, believing that they are “in a stronger camp and less at risk of being judged by others.” Sometimes, their opponents are also encouraged to side with the “stronger” position.
Applying the “train test” to the Russian context showed that the topic of the war is highly sensitive both to its supporters and opponents, and that the spiral of silence affects both sides of the discussion. However, its impact on opponents of the war has proved to be much stronger than on its supporters. Thus, people who oppose the special military operation in Ukraine are less willing to discuss the Russian-Ukrainian conflict with those who support it.
Another important finding made by the researchers is the fact that a person’s willingness to speak out about the war is influenced most by the distribution of opinions about it in their immediate circle of acquaintances. So, the more people in the orbit of respondents who had shared a similar opinion with them, the more the respondents were willing to discuss the war, and vice versa. It can be assumed that the need to maintain social ties is stronger for Russians than the need to defend and disseminate their political views, as we noted in our analytical report “The war near and far.” Zvonovsky and Khodykin suggest another explanation, however: the “bad experience” of political discussions, which often end in conflict and frustration, also has an impact, since the opinions of interlocutors are not changed, and the desire to talk about the war with one’s political opponents thus simply disappears.
The last interesting finding of the authors about which we want to tell you is the following. If the environment of the respondents is divided approximately equally (~50% “for” the war and ~50% “against”), then the probability that those oppose the special military operation will discuss it does not decrease—unlike supporters of the war, who are much less likely under the same circumstances to discuss the military operation with strangers of opposite views. Thus, the opponents of the military conflict “have learned to resist the spiral of silence better than their opponents.” This means that if the distribution of opinions in Russia changes, “opponents of the military conflict will have greater opportunities than [their] opponents to promote their own narrative about the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.”
IOWA CITY, Iowa — Anti-Donald Trump Republicans know they are in the middle of a critical moment to stop the former president’s political comeback. But for some, the steep cost of voicing resistance to Trump often renders them silent.
“If you go against Trump, like — you’re over,” said Kyle Clare, 20, a member of the University of Iowa’s College Republicans.
“I don’t talk about Donald Trump a lot because I’m afraid of the backlash,” said Jody Sears, 66, a registered Republican from Grimes, Iowa.
“If you would say something negative about Trump, we had one person that would just go bang for your throat,” said Barbra Spencer, 83, a former Trump voter describing her experience living in senior apartments in Spillville, Iowa.
Trump still enjoys broad popularity in the Republican Party, and that’s driving his polling leads among Republicans in Iowa, New Hampshire and every other state ahead of the 2024 primaries. But he has also used that popularity to enforce unity. And the same impulse that has led Republican officeholders to avoid criticizing Trump because of potential threats to their safety and their jobs is also holding back rank-and-file voters from opposing the former president in public with the full strength of their personal convictions.
NBC News spoke to more than a half-dozen Iowa voters turned off by Trump — but some were anxious about talking on the record out of fear of being shunned by friends or family. One Iowan said they plan on saying they caucused for Trump when asked by members of their community but will actually caucus for Vivek Ramaswamy.
That adds up to signs going unplaced on front lawns, conversations with friends and family about other candidates avoided — and fewer opportunities for opposition to Trump to take hold in different Republican communities.
NBC News first spoke with Clare in a University of Iowa auditorium Aug. 23, the night of the first GOP presidential debate. Fellow College Republicans were reacting to the debate and voicing steadfast support for the GOP candidate who wasn’t on the stage: Trump.
Clare chose to wait until the end of the night, after the rest of his classmates left the auditorium, to share his thoughts.
“I’m just so scared of doing this right now,” he said, fighting back tears. “I want to be able to have my opinions on our politicians, and I want to be able to speak freely about them and people still understand I’m a conservative.”
Clare criticized Trump, particularly for his actions Jan. 6, 2021, saying, “The end of his administration was un-American.” He also said Trump’s supporters are in denial about losing the 2020 election.
“They don’t want to believe he lost the election. It’s hard to swallow. Losing is hard to swallow. But it’s important that when we lose, we recognize that we lost and we think, ‘What can we do better next time to win over Americans?’” Clare said.
Clare was right to expect backlash from speaking out on Trump. After NBC News published the interview with him on a “Meet The Press” social media account, hateful and homophobic comments poured in. Clare said later that a student came up to him at a university event, shoved a phone in his face with the video on it, and asked him why he’s “scared of Trump and not scared of getting AIDS from having gay sex.”
“Say something they disagree with, and they go after your sexuality,” said Clare, who added that he doesn’t regret doing the interview with NBC News. Many of the comments questioned if Clare — who holds a leadership role at the University of Iowa’s College Republican organization, interned for a Republican on Capitol Hill, and is heavily involved in the Johnson County, Iowa, GOP — was truly a Republican.
“I think it shouldn’t be a bad thing for me to say I am conservative and that I think there are other options, and I don’t think that this person is good for our country,” Clare said. But he’s worried those opinions will stunt his own long-term political ambitions.
“If people as powerful and as prominent as members of Congress can be taken down because of their criticisms of one man, what’s stopping that from happening to me?” Clare noted, referring to the Republicans ousted from Congress after voting to impeach Trump.
Trump’s criticism forced several senators and House members into retirement or primary defeat during his first years in office. Later, of the 10 House Republicans who voted to bring impeachment charges against Trump following the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, four retired before facing voters in 2022 and another four lost their next primaries. Only two remain in the House.
In the Senate, three of the seven Republicans who voted to convict Trump have since retired or resigned, and Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah is retiring next year.
Romney recounted to biographer McKay Coppins that Republican members of Congress confided to him they wanted Trump impeached and convicted but would vote against the charges because they were worried about threats to their families.
Former Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, one of the Republicans who lost a 2022 primary after voting to impeach Trump, detailed similar conversations in her new memoir.
Cheney wrote about one colleague that she “absolutely understood his fear” about what would happen if he voted to impeach Trump. But, she continued, “I also thought, ‘Perhaps you need to be in another job.’”
‘It was easier to be quiet about it’
Rank-and-file voters are less prominent and thus less likely to be harassed or threatened, but some of the same worries and experiences remain. Sears, the Republican from Grimes, Iowa, feels Trump doesn’t reflect her values. But that’s an opinion she kept to herself until recently, because of the fear of being cast off by family and friends.
“Family and people I work with are Trump supporters,” said Sears, describing her hesitancy to speak out about her beliefs.
“I think Trump supporters tried to coerce or bully people into also being Trump supporters. And so it was easier to be quiet about it,” she said.
Spencer, a retiree now living in a nursing home in Decorah, Iowa, says Trump supporters at her previous retirement community created a toxic environment that stopped her and her friends from voicing opinions.
“We were afraid of arguments,” she said. “When you live with that many old people, sometimes they have very strange but very firm thoughts and you better think the way they do,” she said, explaining her silence.
Clare, Sears and Spencer are not the only people who feel this way.
And as Cheney and Romney’s stories demonstrate, social ostracization isn’t limited to just voters who speak out against Trump. Former Rep. Denver Riggleman, a Republican who represented a slice of Virginia from 2019 to 2021, says his mother texted him, “I’m sorry you were ever elected,” after he came out against Trump.
“It was so soul-crushing to have a family member choose Donald Trump over you,” Riggleman continued. He said evangelical Trump supporters in his life saw Trump as being blessed by God. “I was going directly against religious beliefs. And that’s a losing battle.”
It’s now been almost six months since a member of Congress endorsed a non-Trump candidate in the 2024 GOP primary, according to NBC News’ endorsement tracking.
The trend has popped up elsewhere on the 2024 campaign trail, too. When Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds endorsed Ron DeSantis in November, the Florida governor mentioned in an interview with NBC News that he “had people come to me and say they endorsed [Trump] because of the threats and everything like that” during the campaign.
Trump quickly went after Reynolds after news of her DeSantis endorsement broke, posting on social media that it would “be the end of her political career.”
‘Vortex of controversy and vilification’
Charlie Sykes was a conservative radio show host in Wisconsin for more than 20 years before Trump burst onto the political scene. Sykes was skeptical and critical of Trump, eventually confronting him in a heated interview about insults Trump hurled at Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s wife in 2016. But for Sykes, it began to become clear that there was no room anymore for anti-Trump conservatives on talk radio.
“The audience of conservative talk radio began to think that loyalty was required. They wanted conservative media to be a safe space for them,” Sykes said, describing how his role became untenable.
After leaving radio, Sykes didn’t let up on his Trump criticism, which he says got him booted from a think tank and led him to lose friends and become a self-described political orphan. He says his criticism was met with bullying — and he understands why people who don’t work in the public eye might be hesitant to voice their true feelings about Trump.
“I do understand why people in their normal lives don’t want to be caught up in this vortex of controversy and vilification — why they would step back from all of this,” Sykes said.
Another longtime Wisconsin Republican recently detailed one of the results of that pressure.
Former House Speaker Paul Ryan recently spoke on video at an event for Teneo, a global consulting firm where he serves as vice-chair. Ryan said the impulse to avoid getting on the wrong side of angry Trump supporters pushed former colleagues to vote against impeachment even though they wanted Trump gone — and now he thinks there are many who regret those votes.
“They figured, ‘I’m not gonna take this heat and I’m going to vote against this impeachment because he’s gone anyway,’” Ryan said. “But what’s happened is that he’s been resurrected.”
Students at the Mechnikov Medical University[in Petersburg] have told Bumaga that the dean’s office has asked them to fill out an online test about their attitude to the war in Ukraine, the president, and the future of Russia.
The students said that they were simply asked to take a survey—they were not informed about possible punishments for those who refused to fill out the test.
Before completing the test, students must log in through their VKontakte accounts or with a phone number, for example.
Students are asked to answer the following questions:
Do you generally trust the rector of your university?
What emotions do you feel when you think about Russia?
How much do you agree that things in our country are moving in the right direction?
Do you generally trust Russian President Vladimir Putin?
Do you think President Vladimir Putin is doing a good job or a poor job as president?
Has your attitude towards President Vladimir Putin changed over the past month? If it has changed, has it worsened or improved?
Choose the symbol that best fits the concept of “President of Russia.”
In your opinion, does Russia face the threat of a military attack?
Do you support Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine?
Choose the symbol that best fits the concept of “Special Military Operation.”
The survey also asks students to indicate what the country’s leadership should prioritize: strengthening sovereignty, strengthening the state, or developing the economy. The only alternative to these options is “undecided.”
The survey was created by the platform Concerned Individual, which operates in cooperation with the Education Ministry. It is marked as “April University Student Survey.” An employee of the Herzen Russian State Pedagogical University [in Petersburg] also reported to Bumaga that [students there had been asked to complete the survey].
If you have received such a request, tell us about it by writing to our Telegram bot: @PaperPaperNewsBot. It’s anonymous and safe.
A screenshot of the front page of Concerned Individual’s website, featuring an interactive map of Russia’s federal districts. According to Concerned Individual, 82% of people in the Northwest Federal District (in red), which includes St. Petersburg, are “concerned individuals.” Twenty-nine percent of them (according to VTSIOM) have donated money to people or organizations. Fifteen percent have donated items to orphanages, old folks’ homes, and homes for the disabled. Four percent have been involved in charity events such as concert and exhibitions. Six percent of them have worked as volunteers.
Universities in all regions of Russia will join the platform Concerned Individual to become initiators and participants of positive change at their educational institutions and in the higher education system as a whole.
Along with the Russian Science and Higher Education Ministry, the Russian Education Ministry, Tomsk State University, and the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM), Concerned Individual is launching a program of regular opinion polling of students, teachers, and administrative staff at Russian universities. We plan to recruit representatives of more than 700 tertiary educational institutions to the platform by the end of 2024.
The project’s aim is to form a permanent feedback mechanism between the university community and state authorities, to identify problems that need solving as well as promising directions for the growth of higher education.
“We believe that such a dialogue is especially necessary today, and our platform is technologically and methodically ready to provide it. Concerned people are the key potential for change in the universities, regions, and country. And opinion polls are a scientifically grounded tool that has proven itself well and reflect a real cross-section of the situation. Therefore, we urge students, teachers, and administrative staff to take part in the project and voice their opinion on the most pressing social issues,” comments Vadim Arakelov, CEO of the company Concerned Citizen.
The first wave of polls will kick off on April 10. Respondents will answer questions about the quality of education, media consumption, socio-psychological well-being, and other topics. In 2023, polls will also be conducted in May, September, October, and November. You can take part in the surveys by clicking on the link posted in your personal university account.
The results of the surveys will be published on Concerned Individual’s Telegram channel and website, and posted in the personal accounts of students and university staff.
It’s not the prices that are rising — it’s the ruble that is falling. The “special operation” is a war. You can’t force Ukraine to like you. We haven’t surrendered to NATO. The neighbors have no more Nazis than we do. Soldiers should be alive, healthy, and at home. The president has gone mad, and everyone is afraid to contradict him. Your children love you and want to live like human beings.
That’s it, thank you. So that’s how it is. Yeah, it’s time to end it. Wow. Thanks, I feel relieved. Oh, would that they would explain it that way on TV.
The war has made us take a look around. In whose midst do we live? Do our fellow citizens think the same way we do? Public Sociology Lab (PS Lab) is a research team that studies politics and society in Russia. In 2022, it launched a project to study the attitudes of Russians to the war.
How do people explain the conflict’s causes to themselves? How does their attitude to politics affect their personal interactions and self-perception? Do they have a political position at all? We talked about this with researchers at PS Lab. Svetlana Erpyleva works at the Center for Eastern European Studies at the University of Bremen, while Maxim Alyukov, a political sociologist, works at the Institute for Russian Studies at King’s College London.
How is your research on the attitude of Russians to the war with Ukraine set up?
Svetlana Erpyleva: Qualitative methods are the main difference between our team and the other teams doing systematic research on perceptions of the war. We have long conversations with our informants and try to find out not only their attitude to the war directly, but also many other things related to it — what sources of information they trust, how they interact with loved ones, their fears and hopes, and so on.
We searched for respondents using social networks, ads, and the “snowball” method (that is, when an informant helps us set up a conversation with their ow friends). It was a big help in contacting people who do not often reflect on politics.
Some people responded enthusiastically to the ads we placed about finding informants — they wanted to talk to us themselves. Moreover, these are not only people who have a clear stance for or against the war and are willing to share it, but also those who feel that their opinion is not represented in public discussion. Such people do not see other people who think like them on social networks or in the media and want to put themselves on the map.
For example, during the the second stage of our research, in the autumn of 2022, we realized that dividing people into “supporters of the war,” “opponents,” and “doubters” (as we had done in the spring) was no longer warranted. Our sources support some decisions by the authorities, but not others. They regard the war as necessary in some ways, but some things about it terrify them, while other things cause them to doubt. Our interviews, which last about an hour (sometimes longer), have in fact enabled us to understand the peculiarities of how the war is regarded by Russians, with all their contradictions and complications.
Our other goal is to study the dynamics of how the war is regarded. We conducted the first series of interviews in the spring of 2022. We did the second series between October and December 2022. It is important to note here that in the autumn we spoke only with “non-opponents of the war,” that is, with those whom in the spring we had provisionally labeled “supporters” and “doubters.”
Maxim Alyukov: I would also make another important clarification. When people talk about studying perceptions of the war, they often have in mind representative surveys. Using them, we can indeed more or less accurately describe the range of opinions around the country. But polls cannot show how opinions about the war are shaped, or what emotions people experience. We are going deep rather than wide. Yes, we cannot draw large-scale conclusions about public opinion in general, but, unlike the polling projects, it is easier for us to talk about specific mechanisms — what emotions tend to shape certain positions, how different types of media consumption affect perceptions of the war, and so on.
What is the difference between how people regarded the war in the spring and the autumn?
SE: On the one hand, we see from the autumn interviews that perceptions of the war had not changed radically. Almost none of the people with whom we had repeat conversations had changed their attitude to the war from “plus” to “minus” and vice versa. Of course, there have been small shifts in this regard. For example, some of the springtime convinced supporters remained “optimists,” while others had become “pessimists.” The former believe that the “special operation” is going in the right direction, despite all the shortcomings, while the latter criticize the chaos in the army, the chaos during the mobilization, retreats by Russian troops, and so on.
But we shouldn’t deceive ourselves: the pessimists have not stopped supporting the war. Rather, they want Russia to act tougher and more effectively, and ultimately win.
In the first series of interviews in the spring, we identified a group of so-called doubters. But it is clear that even back then different informants in this group were closer to one or the other pole of opinion. Some doubted, but were inclined to support the war, while others were against it. In the autumn, there were fewer informants who were completely unsure of their position. Those who had been closer to the supporters of the war had often begun to support the war a little more. The same thing happened to those who had been more against the war than not: many of them had become a little more strongly opposed to the war (without turning into unambiguous opponents).
On the other hand, the ways people have for justifying the war have changed. Some of the old methods are losing popularity, while others are emerging.
For example, one of the new justifications for war involves imagining it as a natural disaster. We feel sorry, of course, for those who perish in a flood. We cannot regard this other than negatively. But it is impossible for us to oppose it. The same thing has happened with the war.
From the viewpoint of the informants who have resorted to this excuse, the war just happened. It is a terrible reality that we can only accept.
Another new way of rationalizing the war involves turning its consequences into its alleged causes, as when our informants say, “Ukraine has been bombing our border cities, so we need to continue the war,” or, “The war has shown that we are fighting not with Ukraine, but with the collective West. We are fighting not with a fraternal people, but with our perennial enemy, so it is right that we started this war.” The second statement had also come up in the spring, but it has become much more popular. The rationale behind such justifications involves arguing that events that happened after the war started seemingly reveal the enemy’s true identity.
MA: Attitudes towards sources of information have also changed. There are two trends: polarization and stabilization. At the war’s outset, people tried to seek out information, including information from the “opposite camp.” For example, those who supported the war sometimes read opposition and Ukrainian media, because they understood that the Russian state media are propagandistic. Now, on the contrary, many people are so weary that they have not only reduced their consumption of information in general, but also have stopped following sources that reflect the opposite opinion.
At the beginning of the war, the following idea was often discussed: information about the destruction, civilian casualties, and losses among Russian soldiers would gradually undermine the effect of propaganda. Now we see that, over time, the simultaneous consumption of information from pro-government and opposition sources, which paint radically different pictures of the world, has had the opposite effect. It causes discomfort, which leads to the fact that people who are less involved try to shield themselves from information about the war in general, while more involved people consume propaganda and stop paying attention to alternative sources. This is a conscious choice: they realize that they are consuming propaganda. I remember the words of one informant: “There are different points of view, but the brain tends to stick to one theory. I’m inclined to choose the theory of my country, of the state media, so that my brain follows it.”
It transpires that the person understands perfectly well that they are consuming propaganda, and they consciously choose it amidst conflicting explanations that cause discomfort.
Do these changes produce any practical actions? Maybe people stop talking to certain people or get involved in charity?
SE: There are only a few volunteers among our informants.
People can have a positive view of charity, and worry about their country, but most of them do not take any action themselves.
And yet, volunteering that involves assistance to the mobilized is certainly seen positively by our informants (that is, by “non-opponents” with very different views of the war). Such volunteering is regarded not as involvement in the war, but as support for “our boys,” for “our country.” This is not surprising: there are always significantly fewer “activists” and volunteers than there are sympathizers. Only a few people are involved in protests, too.
Changes have also been taking place in the way people talk about the war with their loved ones. For example, many of our informants described the summer as a carefree time when the war had completely disappeared from their lives: they stopped discussing it. The mobilization was the “new February 24” for those informants (who were most often people remote from politics). The topic of war had returned to everyday conversations again. The informants were discussing the events even with strangers. For example, one of our sources told us that even at work meetings with her clients she had occasion to discuss the mobilization.
Do attitudes to specific events affect everyday practices? For example, the mobilization began and people decided to check whether their foreign travel passports were still valid.
SE: Unfortunately, we didn’t talk much about everyday practices in our interviews. Probably the most common reaction to the mobilization’s announcement was anxiety and, simultaneously, the absence of concrete action: “Whatever will be will be, but I hope that nothing bad happens.” Some of our informants who did not want to be sent to the front changed their places of work and residence, but we didn’t often encounter such people in our interviews. (It is important to understand that we were talking to “non-opponents” of the war.)
MA: It’s also worth recalling that a minority of Russians have the possibility of leaving the country. According to our research on social networks (this is another project that my colleagues and I are doing), the most common reaction to the mobilization has been evasion.
Is it possible, then, to talk about a desire for inneremigration among those who have remained in Russia? For example, a person says, “Actually, I have a lot more important and valuable things in my life [than the war], and I want to pursue them.”
SE: It was the presence of this desire among people in the spring of 2022 that made us single out the doubters as a separate group. All of them were typified by the notion that the “distant war” was secondary compared to more important values — work, loved ones, and family. But in the autumn, we saw that fewer and fewer of our informants were able to take a neutral stance, to completely distance themselves from assessing the war. Our informants talked about pressure: they seemed to feel that society demanded that they voice their opinion. In this sense, as Maxim has said, the polarization of views has been increasing.
But our informants assess [this polarization] in different ways. Many supporters of the war say that it is awesome because people are becoming more united, more interested in what is happening around them. The “anti-patriots” will leave the country, but patriotic Russians will remain. Others complain that it is hard for them to cope with the pressure. They would like to take a neutral position, but they cannot manage it. One of my sources described it this way (I’m quoting from memory, of course, but nearly verbatim): “I would like not to take a side, but my smart friends say that the war should be continued. And I understand that they are right, that one should support one’s country in such circumstances. I’m unable to take a back seat.” But a little later she said: “I’m afraid that time will pass and [people] will come and ask me, ‘Have you been reading Meduza? Have you been watching Channel One? Whose side are you on?’ And I won’t have any answer.” This situation even makes her think about emigrating. That is, on the one hand, she chooses to side with supporters of the war; on the other hand, she is afraid to make this choice.
MA: I would add that the desire for neutrality remains. One respondent put it this way: “There is war all round, but I try to maintain peace on my VKontakte page.” He moderates disputes there and shares links to articles about the importance of neutrality. For him, this is a way of creating a space for himself in which there is the possibility of remaining neutral, since he doesn’t have this possibility in other contexts. It is another matter that there are fewer and fewer opportunities for such neutrality.
You say that your respondents feel pressure. Where do they feel this pressure? In interactions with loved ones and colleagues, or somewhere else?
SE: It is often the pressure of their immediate environment. Many opponents of the war have left the country, and the doubters thus have fewer contacts with their viewpoint. They are surrounded, as a rule, more by supporters of the “special operation.” But the cause of such pressure may be an inner conflict. For example, our sources tell us that they were taught at school that when the country is in difficult straits, the worst stance is neutrality. But now they have found themselves in exactly this position. It is really difficult for them: they see the propaganda on both sides, but do not feel strong enough to resist it. This can be illustrated as follows: “Maybe Russia was right to attack, or maybe it was wrong to do so. Maybe Ukraine is the enemy, or maybe it isn’t the enemy. I don’t understand what’s going on at all. But how can I fail to take a stance?”
In such circumstances, people turn to what seems certain to them — for example, to their Russian identity. You may not know who is right, but you have a native country and it must be supported.
MA: This feeling of pressure consists of two parts. The first is personal interaction, about which we have said our piece. The second is the influence of the media, in which you can constantly see appeals and reminders of the war. This background encourages a person to clearly articulate their position.
Is the official newspeak (“special operation”, “line of contact,” etc.) incorporated into the explanations given by the “non-opponents” of the war? Is the state discourse generally used to justify it?
MA: Yes and no. It does happen that our sources literally quote propaganda narratives. For example, they start saying on TV that there are fakes everywhere, and a person repeats this idea. But at the same time, an absolute minority of our sources trust state broadcasts, although there are such people among them. They have doubts and come up with their own hypotheses. But it is important to take into account that our informants live in large cities, so it is likely that, for example, in smaller cities far from the capitals, the ratio is different, that there are fewer people there who are like the majority of our respondents, and more people who trust propaganda.
SE: You also have to understand that there are different types of support for the war, and therefore different explanations for it. There are people who accept the explanations given by the state media. Most often these people are elderly: they regularly watch TV, and then rehash the rhetoric of the propagandists. But there are other kinds of people — for example, those whom we call “committed supporters.” Their attitude to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict was shaped back in 2014, or even in 2004. They can be quite critical of propaganda narratives and are fond of saying, “We have bad propaganda. It is incapable of explaining anything.” Such people are able to explain the war’s causes on their own. And there are, for example, people who are remote from politics, who might watch TV sometimes, but it doesn’t convince them. They can even rehash propaganda cliches, but they do not adopt them, they do not present them as their own words. For example, they say, “We were told that…” or “We are told that…”
Is it possible then to say that, despite propaganda, polarization, and state pressure, even those who are not against the war are in a gray area? In other words, there are no views that could unite people, and accordingly, that is why they cannot unite and make demands.
SE: Yes, that’s right. Unless “convinced supporters” could try to create some kind of association. But I’m sure they’re a minority. Most people are busy with their daily affairs: they are not interested in political positions and movements. We are currently preparing a second analytical report on the results of the autumn stage of our study, and there we even try to avoid the word “position.”
Most of our informants have no “position.” Their attitude to the war is a bundle of fears, doubts, hopes, and other feelings. Such people may want Russia to win, but sincerely worry about the victims of the shelling in Ukraine.
One of our informants said, “If I had been subject to the mobilization I would have been out of Russia in three minutes.” And yet she, for example, wants Russia to win.
MA: Especially since propaganda does not just attempt to impose a certain point of view. It also generates a multitude of contradictory narratives that simply confuse people. This is a paradox of authoritarian propaganda: the state needs this vital demobilizing effect to maintain control, but it also prevents it from generating broad support for the war.
You mentioned sympathy for the victims of the shelling. In your spring report, some of your sources say that they would tolerate a decline in the material standard of living, because for them what matters are spiritual values. Since they are so clearly aware of losses, can we say that Russians perceive themselves as victims?
SE: We rarely see people regarding themselves as victims directly. They say, “The situation has become worse in Russia as a whole, but everything is fine with me. Yes, people are being mobilized, and that’s scary, but my loved ones aren’t being mobilized. Prices have gone up, but we’re coping.” Our sources often regard Russia as a whole as a victim. They are offended on Russia’s behalf: it was forced into the conflict, and it is humiliated everywhere and considered an aggressor. That is, they don’t think “[international] brands have abandoned me,” but those brands have abandoned “poor Russia.”
MA: Ukrainians are also regarded as victims. “The poor residents of Ukraine are being used by NATO. Would that it were over as soon as possible.” In many ways, this is part of the propaganda narrative that Ukraine has become a firing range on which NATO and Russia are fighting using Ukrainians as proxies. But this is, rather, a propaganda cliche that people simply repeat without thinking through their own position on this issue.
It follows that “non-opponents” of the war do not regard it as part of their personal lives?
SE: This is a generalization, of course, but I would say that it is basically true. For the opponents of the war, on the contrary, the war has become an existential challenge. Sometimes they even make themselves experience it as such: “I cannot live an ordinary life. I must remember that there is a war going on.”
But isn’t there a contradiction here? The “non-opponents” of the war do not regard it as a personal matter, but we are saying that they feel pressure from their loved ones, are trying to find their own identity, and are grasping for rationalizations.
SE: This is a difficult question, but let’s try thinking about it. Compared to opponents, supporters and doubters are more likely to try to rid themselves of negative thoughts, to distance themselves from the war. And yet it regularly makes its presence felt. The latter is a new trend, and many of [our respondents] do not like it: they would prefer to live their lives without being reminded about the war. But it has become more difficult to do this.
MA: In our research on how the war is seen by Russians, we have been observing what I had observed in my pre-war research. People, if they are not politicized, rarely hold consistent positions at all. I will give an example from my research on Russian perceptions of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine prior to February 24. A person has a smorgasbord of different political ideas. He supports all the decisions made by the authorities, including the annexation of Crimea and military backing for the so-called DPR and LPR. And yet half an hour later he says, “Basically, it would be a good idea to withdraw the troops and leave Ukraine alone. It’s bad for us.” It’s just that he hadn’t needed to make connections between his disparate views on this issue before. This necessity emerged during our conversation.
We have been observing the same thing now. People are trying to push the war out of their lives. They need arguments in favor of the war — not because it is their political position, but because it is safer to live that way. For many of our respondents, the interview was like an exam in which they were forced for the first time to think about logical chains and formulate at least some kind of a clear opinion about the war, which they had not tried to formulate before.
What goes on in your mind?
I think that I am falling down.
What goes on in your mind?
I think that I am upside down.
Lady, be good, and do what you should,
you know it'll work alright.
Lady, be good, do what you should,
you know it'll be alright.
I'm goin' up, and I'm goin' down.
I'm gonna fly from side to side.
See the bells, up in the sky,
Somebody's cut the string in two.
Lady, be good, and do what you should,
you know it'll work alright.
Lady, be good, do what you should,
you know it'll be alright.
One minute one, one minute two.
One minute up and one minute down.
What goes on here in your mind?
I think that I am falling down.
Lady, be good, and do what you should,
you know it'll work alright.
Lady, be good, do what you should,
you know it'll be alright.
Throughout Putin’s war on Ukraine, the attitudes of the Russian public toward the regime and the conflict have been the subject of much scrutiny. This talk addresses this question by analyzing data released by the Presidential Administration that summarizes monthly correspondence received from the public from January 2021 through December 2022. While the identity of these correspondents is not known, their decision to send non-anonymous appeals to the President suggests that they support or tolerate the Putin regime. The data demonstrate that after an initial period of uncertainty about the war’s economic impact, these concerns abated until the announcement of mobilization in September. Since then, the appeals depict a Russian public that is increasingly concerned about conditions of military service and the war’s impact on service members and their families. At the same time, the data indicate that the Kremlin’s strategy to shift the blame for mobilization from the President to regional authorities appears successful.
Pollsters argue over how many Russians support the Ukraine war
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, sociologists have grappled with the question of how many Russians support the Russian army in Ukraine. Both independent and state-run pollsters claim they are the majority, and these studies are frequently referenced in Western media. However, at the same time, a group of independent sociologists have pointed out that these polls may not be representative — many Russians are reluctant to speak freely about their thoughts on the conflict due to draconian wartime censorship laws.
Independent researchers from the Khroniki project recently presented the findings from their latest survey, which suggest using a percentage of how many Russians support the war may not be a very meaningful statistic. In their view, this figure comprises a misleadingly wide spectrum of people: from those who volunteered to fight in Ukraine to those afraid of repression. Moreover, at least half of those who are opposed to the war are afraid to speak out, the Khroniki sociologists said.
To identify the core pro- and anti-war groups in Russia, the pollsters devised a series of questions. The results of their survey suggests that the core support group represents 22% of the population, while the core opposition is 20.1%.
Separately, researchers stress that “the fridge counters the effects of the TV,” and this effect is felt more and more with each passing month. The level of support for the war among TV viewers who are encountering economic pressures is falling. Among TV viewers who have encountered at least one economic problem, support for the war was down 11 percentage points in February.
Other polls, however, show that a vast majority of Russians support the war. For example, according to state-run pollster VTsIOM, 68% of Russian residents welcomed the invasion of Ukraine and just 20% are opposed to it. And leading independent polling agency Levada Center published results in January that suggested 75% of Russians support the war — to varying degrees.
Why the world should care:
It’s not easy to work out exactly what proportion of the Russian population supports the war, but Khroniki is certain that the pro-war lobby is far smaller than polls from leading agencies would suggest. If that is true, it casts doubt on the widely-held belief in the west that the war in Ukraine is supported by most Russians who remain inside the country.
On 1 September 2022, I returned to Russia after almost a year away. The war that began six months ago had been present in my life daily: in the news, in conversations with friends and colleagues, and in the Ukrainian flags on the streets of the European city where I lived. But there was no trace of the war in the town near Moscow where I grew up, and where my parents still live. I did not see pro-war or anti-war graffiti or slogans; war was not mentioned in the streets or by my friends and acquaintances. As I sank into the familiar rhythm of my childhood town, I caught myself thinking that perhaps I was beginning to forget about it too. That all changed on September 21, the day ‘partial mobilisation’ was announced. Suddenly, the war was being mentioned all around me, or rather whispered about, in the cafe where I listened to Putin’s address, in the local library, in the street, on the train from Moscow to St. Petersburg. The war seemed to have reappeared in Russian society instantaneously, with the snap of a finger.
I had observed something similar before, not around me, but as a researcher: in the data my colleagues and I collected. Our Public Sociology Lab began conducting a qualitative study on Russians’ perceptions of the war on February 27, 2022, just three days after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began. During the first months of the war, we conducted (link in Russian) over 200 interviews with supporters of the war, its opponents and doubters. At that moment, many of our informants, including those who were far from being exclusively anti-war, also said that they had been shocked by the news of the start of the ‘special military operation’ and had tried to make sense of events in their conversations with friends and relatives. But after a few weeks, the emotions of shock and confusion began to fade. The war became routine and faded into background noise.
So we knew that the ‘return of war to society’ following the announcement of mobilisation would also likely be temporary. We waited a few weeks and, on October 11th, conducted our first interview as part of the second stage of our research into Russians’ perceptions of war. Between October and December 2022, we conducted 88 interviews with ‘non-opponents’ of the war, deciding this time to focus the study on support for and disengagement from the war, rather than resistance to it. Forty of these interviews were repeated conversations with supporters of the war as well as its doubters doubters, with whom we had already spoken in the spring.
We were driven by the desire to understand how perceptions of, and predominantly support for, the war were evolving. From the interviews conducted in the spring of 2022, we roughly divided all ‘non-opponents’ of the war into supporters and doubters. Despite the fact that among supporters of the war, there were interviewees who were convinced to a greater or lesser extent, all of them found some means to justify the ‘special military operation’. Some were staunch supporters of ‘the Russian world’ and believed that the war would push the geopolitical threat away from Russia’s borders and strengthen the country’s position; some were worried about loved ones in Donbas and rejoiced at the prospect of an imminent resolution to the longstanding conflict; some, viewers of Russian TV channels, spoke of ‘combating fascism’ and ‘protecting the Russian-speaking population of Donbas’; many expressed confidence or, at the very least, hope: ‘if our government started the war, then it must have been necessary’. Although these people were worried about the casualties caused by the war and looked with apprehension at a future defined by isolation and sanctions, they remained supporters of the ‘special operation’.
It seemed to us, as it did to many others, that the announcement of mobilisation might fundamentally change something in the way Russians viewed the war. However, in addition to mobilisation, the war was marked by a series of other events, each of which could have left an impression on Russian society: the seizure of new territories and their subsequent annexation to Russia, the retreat of Russian troops, the bombing of the Crimean bridge, news of the bombing of Russian border regions. All this occurred against a backdrop of increasing Western sanctions, muddled explanations from the authorities as to why the country was at war, repression of dissenters, and increasing polarisation of views on the war in society. In such a state of affairs, we assumed that the views of the war held by ordinary Russians could not be sustained. In some ways, our assumptions were right, and in other ways, we were wrong.
It was not without reason that we waited a few weeks after the announcement of mobilisation and the swift ‘return of the war to society’ before we began the second stage of our research. The October interviews showed that the emotions associated with the announcement of mobilisation were as strong as they were fleeting. After a few weeks, they began to subside, and ‘partial mobilisation’ became normalised as a part of the new everyday reality. But, most interestingly, despite the negative attitudes towards mobilisation expressed by many of our informants who were not opposed to the war, their dissatisfaction with mobilisation rarely translated into dissatisfaction with the ‘special military operation’.
Russian workers called toxicity the worst quality among bosses, according to Gazeta.Ru, citing the results of surveys carried out by the Team Awards for creating strong teams.
“Zloy boss” (“Angry boss”). Photo courtesy of iStock and Rabota.ru
The greatest number of Russians surveyed (40%) believe that toxicity [toksichnost’] is the worst trait in a boss. Incompetence (35.1%) and inefficiency (24.3%) took second and third places, respectively. The list of negative qualities also includes aggressiveness (23.8%) and bias (19.8%).
Only 10% of respondents consider an authoritarian boss to be exemplary.
The respondents also spoke about what qualities an ideal leader should have. Motivating employees was in first place (41.2%), while preventing burnout was in second place (27.6%). Respondents also identified encouraging professional development (18.8%) and resolving conflicts (17.1%) as important qualities in a good leader.
We recently wrote that Elon Musk had staged another wave of cuts on Twitter. He laid off 200 employees — that is, about 10% of the workforce. Esther Crawford, the head of the Twitter Blue subscription, who was considered one of the new Twitter owner’s most loyal supporters, was among the employees made redundant.
Russians consider toxicity to be the worst quality in a boss according to a survey done by Team Awards, a prize awarded in the field of strong team building. Gazeta.Ru reviewed the results of the survey.
The top qualities that, according to respondents, are at odds with image of an ideal manager were toxicity (40%), incompetence (35.1%) and inefficiency (24.3%). In addition, the rating also included aggressiveness (23.8%) and bias (19.8%).
The respondents also saw the boss’s role on a team differently. The majority (41.2%) believe that a leader should motivate their subordinates, thereby increasing labor productivity. The next answer on the list is preventing employees from burning out (27.6%). Another 18.8% want the boss to be engaged in their professional development, while 17.1% believe that the leader should be able to resolve conflicts on the team.
Interestingly, only 10% consider a boss who subscribes to authoritarianism exemplary.
Earlier, we reported that every third Russian avoids networking [netvorking] because of uncertainty about their own competence.
Istanbul, December 2022. Photo courtesy of Republic
[…]
500 vacancies for military registration specialists were advertised from late September to last December last year, according to HeadHunter. Previously, this specialization was considered a rather rare and generally not very sought-after profile in the personnel departments of Russian organizations (private and public). For comparison: only 145 such vacancies were advertised in the whole of 2021. The military mobilization has changed the situation: since September — that is, in just three months — the number of such offers on the labor market has increased by about two and a half times (Superjob’s data also show the same thing). The reasons? One of them (apparently, the main one) is an increase in fines for lapses in paperwork: to avoid them, employers are willing to pay applicants for the popular vacancy 70-80 thousand rubles a month. And this is despite the fact that there is a shortage of a number of other specialists on the labor market (and, presumably, they are no less valuable than SMO-era personnel officers). The number of vacancies on Avito Jobs alone, according to a recent company study, increased by 69% in 2022. Most likely, the trend will continue, serving as a natural continuation of the outflow of people and, ultimately, personnel.
50% — the percentage of last year’s sales of existing housing in the Russian Federation made through a notarized power of attorney. This record figure for the entire observable history of the market, as calculated by investment company Flip, who were commissioned by Kommersant, clearly indicates that the sales trend was primarily shaped by property owners who had emigrated. The high volume of such transactions seems to be an anomalous phenomenon. In 2021, a power of attorney was the basis for sale in no more than 20% of deals. In 2020, this figure was 15%. It was 8% in 2019, and 5% in 2018. You ain’t seen nothing yet, though: the ongoing controversy over whether to confiscate the property of openly anti-war Russians who have left the country must be making an additional contribution to the process of selling apartments and houses, which was gaining momentum as it was.
$81.69 billion — the total amount of deposits by Russian nationals in foreign banks as of the end of November of last year, according to the latest data from the Russian Central Bank. (4.989 trillion rubles were recalculated at the exchange rate in effect on that date.) Over the past eleven months, the amount has more than doubled — and this is even if we rely entirely on the statistics of the Central Bank, which may not have a complete picture of what is happening. (Russian laws oblige citizens to report when they open accounts in foreign banks and move funds in them, but we cannot be absolutely sure that everyone strictly obeys them.) While one part of these funds remains in these bank accounts, the other goes to the purchase of real estate that, for the most part, is also located outside the Russian Federation.
16,300 houses and apartments in Turkey were purchased by Russian nationals in 2022, according to data published by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat), as studied by RBC. This is not just three times more than in 2021 (when Russian nationals purchased 5,400 housing units in the Turkish Republic), but also more than the total volume of such transactions over the past six years (16,200). It is not surprising that last year, for the first time, Russians took first place among foreigners in buying housing in Turkey, producing almost a quarter of the corresponding demand with their money. Earlier, we wrote that our compatriots purchased two thousand houses and apartments in Turkey in October 2022 alone, overtaking all other foreign home buyers in that country, as reported by TurkStat.
At first glance, the advantages of investing in Turkey are not entire obvious. Inflation in the country, according to TurkStat, exceeded 84% in November, once again breaking records previously established in the autumn of 1998. The Inflation Analysis Group, an independent Turkish entity, estimated that inflation had reached a whopping 170.7% . In addition, prices for real estate, which have rising robustly, can at any moment just as vigorously drop, taking into account, in particular, the rather murky prospects for “Erdonomics,” depending on the results of the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections. According to Endeksa, in September, the average price for one square meter of housing in Turkey was about 12 thousand Turkish lira (approx. $644), while the average price per housing unit was just over 1.5 million Turkish lira (approx. $83,700). The term of return on investment in housing is estimated at nineteen years, although in the summer this figure was recalculated to seventeen years.
The intense interest on the part of Russian nationals in buying real estate in Turkey is primarily related to the prospect of obtaining Turkish citizenship, Anna Larina, head of the foreign real estate department at NF Group, explained to Republic. (In turn, having a Turkish passport makes it possible to obtain an American E-2 visa, which speeds up the process of immigrating to the United States.) In this sense, it is logical that Russians have become leaders in terms of the number of residence permits issued in Turkey — 153,000, of which, however, as the Turkish Ministry of Migration clarified, 132,000 are short-term tourist residence permits, which are valid for two years.
Turkey is one of the few countries (but not the only country) that is still open to Russian nationals and their private capital. Thus, as 2022 came to a close, Russian citizens took first place among non-residents in buying real estate in Dubai, Bloomberg recently reported, citing figures provided by the brokerage firm Betterhomes.
Withdrawing funds and setting up a new life abroad eloquently testify to the sentiments prevailing among the Russian urban middle class, primarily. Not all people who sell Russian real estate and buy foreign real estate are necessarily irreconcilable opponents of the regime. And yet, it is clear that the vast majority of these people do not want to live and raise children in Putin’s version of the future, which is practically incompatible with modern civilization. In its own way, it is symptomatic that Russians who support the government and dutifully follow it into its deadly adventures are also dissatisfied with what is happening. If it were possible, they would rather return to the past, to a point in time thirty, forty, or fifty years ago.
63% — the percentage of Russians, according to a December poll conducted by the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM), who regret the collapse of the USSR — that is, more than three decades after the event known in Kremlin mythology as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century.” Strictly speaking, the current longing for Soviet times cannot be considered a record: after the August 1998 ruble default, there were noticeably more Russians nostalgic for the Soviet Union — 85%. Nevertheless, an important indicator of public attitudes (as recorded, we should underscore, by a quasi-state polling service) is on the rise again, having increased by twelve percentage points since 2011.
It is clear that this sentiment is primarily voiced by the 46–60 age group (88% of whom are “nostalgic”) and to some extent, people aged 31–45 years (79% of whom are “nostalgic”), assuming that a considerable portion of these people associate the late USSR with their happy childhoods and wild youths. However, according to the poll, even today’s Russian youth, that is, people aged 18–30, mostly (64%) consider the Soviet era “generally a good time.” Of course, their judgments are based on the stories of older generations, and most importantly, on the inevitable comparison with what is happening with the largest post-Soviet country right now.
There wasn’t much left of Russian army Sgt. Andrei Akhromov’s body when it arrived in a zinc coffin at his hometown, a four-hour drive south of Moscow, relatives said. The 21-year-old died in April near the Ukrainian city of Chernihiv when his tank was hit by enemy fire.
Sgt. Akhromov’s cousin, Sergei Akhromov, said a representative of the regional governor’s office told the family it took the armed forces three weeks to identify what remained of him using DNA analysis. Loved ones didn’t look into the casket before burying him last week, he said.
“I only blame America—not Ukraine, not Russia,” Mr. Akhromov, a 32-year-old parks-and-recreation worker, said. “Biden, or however he is called, allowed for Nazism to flourish in Ukraine, and so Russia had to fight not only to protect its people and borders, but also the Ukrainian people, women, children, elderly.”
Source: Evan Gershkovich, “As Coffins Come Home, Russians Confront Toll of Ukraine Invasion,” Wall Street Journal, 4 May 2022
I see that there is a struggle underway over the numbers [of Russians] supporting the war. We are all asked whether Russians want war, how different segments of society relate to the war, etc. There is a temptation (a natural desire) to find grounds — everyone has their own — for our “sense of society’s reaction to the war.” The old liberal circles in Moscow, of course, do not want to reconcile themselves to the fact that society in a patriotic frenzy sincerely supports all the monstrous violence, destruction, and sowing of death and grief produced by Russia’s political leadership and army. Hence the struggle arises. VTsIOM says 75% [of Russians support the war], but independent sociologists says it’s 58-59%. And look at Levada’s figures: by the end of the second month [of the war], support had fallen from 74% to 68%. And so on.
However, if you think about it, what is the political significance of this struggle over the sociological grounds for “non-support”? There is none, since there is no way to mold “non-support” into a political factor. It’s like when the Polish uprising of 1863 was put down. Russian society, including the educated classes, experienced a patriotic upsurge. This is a historical fact. Some people, of course, did not support it, but politically that didn’t mean anything. Therefore, no “figures” or “focus groups” change anything now. They do not enable one to shift Russian society’s attitudes to the war from where they are now. This society is currently under martial law – undeclared, but de facto — because the norms of military censorship have been been instituted, economic data has been partly made off-limits, and civil rights have been completely restricted. Under martial law, “non-support” is tantamount to desertion, “alarmism,” sabotage, and treason. Under martial law, there are no civil institutions within which you can politically voice your “non-support.” Therefore, what are we talking about when we raise the question of who supports the war and why they support it?
Source: Alexander Morozov, Facebook, 4 May 2022. Translation and photo by the Russian Reader
Russia for the Rueful: A Map of Fear | Ivan Davydov | Republic | 7 December 2021
Once upon a time, an influential, respected person and I came up with a project meant to illustrate the absurdity of the Russian Criminal Code’s infamous Article 282, the one about “inciting hatred and enmity.” Oh, what a long time ago it was. Back then, there were simply no other articles in the Criminal Code that covered thought crimes. Can you imagine?
The idea was simple: gather quotes from classic Russian literature that were obvious violations of Article 282, make a website, and send an angry letter to the authorities. How long must this go on? we would write. Enough is enough! Ban books that sow hatred!
Actually, that’s why we focused on the Russian classics. It would have been easy to find the same kind of incitement in Homer, but uniformed readers might not react to his name. But they had definitely heard the surname Pushkin.
When everything was almost ready, however, my senior colleague (a wise person) said, “You know, let’s not do this. After all, they might just up and ban these books. But we have to go on living. How will we live with ourselves then?”
Patriot Games
I recalled this story while reading the amazing news about the Investigative Committee’s war on Russian rap. First, an alarming dispatch appeared on the newswires: the head of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, after receiving an appeal from a “pressure group of patriots,” had ordered an inquiry into the new albums by Oxxxymiron and Noize MC. The pressure had informed the general that the rappers had whitewashed Nazism and promoted extremism.
It was a news item like any other. There is no other kind of news nowadays in Russia, nor can there be any other kind of news.
But then there was more news: the text of the letter by the “patriots” turned up on the LiveJournal blog of a moderately successful online humorist. The country’s chief investigator was not bothered, it transpired, by passages such as the following: “To tell the truth, the faces of Russian law enforcement chiefs are really not always so elegant, and when they start talking, they sometimes seem like aggressive morons, thus generating depression and suicidal moods [among the populace]. It’s also good that they’ve stopped showing the MP Irina Yarovaya on TV. Something needs to be done in this case, because our enemies exploit this weakness.” Famous for his habit of viewing publications on the internet through a magnifying glass, Bastyrkin failed to notice the ridicule.
Alexander Bastyrkin, checking whether the internet is whitewashing Nazism. Photo: Russian Investigative Committee
The author of the “letter” has now been making the rounds of the media, trying to prove that he had been joking. But it doesn’t matter: Veterans of Russia, which is a real (not fictional) pressure group, said that they would write an actual denunciation against the rappers.
Forbidden Topics
It’s basic knowledge that you don’t kid around with policemen, judges, and border guards. Lately, everyone has been recalling what they did during the “snow revolution” protests, ten years ago, so I’ll indulge in remembering what I did too. In the spring of 2012 (not the winter of 2011), I was tried and fined for being involved in an “unauthorized” protest in which I was not involved. At the trial, I decided to take issue with the arrest report, according to which it had taken the paddy wagon ten minutes to transport me from the Nikitsky Gate (in the very center of Moscow) to a police station in the suburbs.
I contacted experts, who calculated that the unfortunate PAZ bus would have had to race at a speed of 600 kilometers per hour. I presented my thoughts to the judge.
The stern lady looked up at me with tired eyes. “Are you questioning the capabilities of the domestic automotive industry?” she asked. I resigned myself to my fate. Plus the fines were humane back then, nothing like the current ones.
But the list of those who cannot be trifled with is outdated. On Monday, the supremely pro-Kremlin polling agency VTSIOM published data on what things Russians now consider it impossible to laugh at.
Many of our fellow Russians are sure that they have a sense of humor. Overall, forty percent of the respondents said they had a sense of humor, and more than half of the young people surveyed said the same thing. And yet, Russians laugh at the jokes of the Ural Dumplings and love KVN, which makes one wonder about their assessments of their own sense of humor. But let’s get to the point.
A screenshot of VTsIOM’s polling data about subjects that Russians consider off-limits for humor. It should be kept in mind that it was VTsIOM that compiled this list of “forbidden” topics, not the people who were surveyed. And Ivan Davydov says as much, below.
In first place on the list of forbidden topics are jokes about the “health characteristics of other people,” and this is probably a good thing. It gets more interesting from there. Eighty percent of those surveyed believe that it is impossible to joke about the [Russian Orthodox] Church. Sixty-nine percent do not see anything funny about “the ethnic traditions and peculiarities of different peoples.” The same number are convinced that there is also little funny about the history of Russia, the USSR and the Russian Empire. (Here, by the way, I agree: there is little that is funny about Russian history.) This includes the sixty-three percent who are against jokes about “historical figures who are not living now.” Fifty-three percent would not touch “the army and the armed forces.” And fifty-one percent consider President Putin off limits (or untouchable?). Reverence for government in general is so strong that forty-five percent are afraid to joke about “other heads of state.”
Joking Aside
The list is quite revealing. But it has nothing at all to do with a special species of hypocrisy peculiar to our population. It has to do with the state’s attempts to train the populace like animals. After all, the list perfectly correlates with the news about the campaign that the state has been waging against thought criminals. The feelings of religious believers are fragile, and the more that official spokesmen of traditional confessions talk about love and mercy, the higher are the chances that they would tear you apart for making an innocent joke. Or their particularly zealous adherents would do this: it makes no difference to the targets of their outrage. There has been a lull in the “buttocks war,” but the echoes of this war are still capable of scaring people.
Why people would steer clear of “ethnic traditions” also needs no explanation, nor is it an example of their outstanding political correctness. They understand that some traditions have their own specifics. Some peoples have a tradition of taking offense and demanding an apology on camera after having conversation with the offender that is fraught with bodily injuries of varying severity.
Nor is our reverent love of history love at all. “Whoever remembers old things, pluck out his eyes,” says the proverb. “Or maybe give him five years for whitewashing Nazism,” the Investigative Committee would add. We now have our own favorite stories on this score. The stories about the Investigative Committee and Alexander Bastrykin’s personal campaign against “Hitler’s accomplices” are well known to everyone. In the Chelyabinsk region, a homeless man who decided to dry his socks at the Eternal Flame was charged with whitewashing Nazism. What can we say about smart people who risk talking about the past? Yes, it’s better not to say anything—you’ll be safer. And if you think that all this concerns only the Second World War, then you’re thinking wrong. In Novosibirsk, investigators had a strict conversation with a scholar who dared to speak about Alexander Nevsky without sufficient respect. In St. Petersburg, the probe into the blogger who hung his own portrait in the Hermitage’s Gallery of Heroes of 1812 so that he could take selfies has not yet been completed. And so on.
The fact that the Russian President rounds out the list of topics forbidden for humor is a direct rebuke to Federation Council member Andrei Klishas. The law he wrote on mandatory respect for the authorities is not really working. (Although the police on the ground have been trying: they have been catching jokers on VKontakte and rolling out gigantic fines for them.) The Investigative Committee should probably take a closer look and figure out whether there has been any sabotage on Klishas’s part. Times are turbulent: there’s a hybrid war underway, and the enemy can entrench itself even at the Federation Council. You can’t let your guard down for a minute.
A Map of Fear
I don’t know what the pollsters at VTsIOM hoped to achieve when they did their survey. But they have produced a perfect map of fear. The state has been trying to intimidate its subjects, and, as we can see, its efforts have not been in vain. Although we should note that the Church, the “traditions of certain peoples,” and their own history frighten Russians more than the authorities, which is evidence that the state cannot finish the job even in this case. They cannot pull off everything: the police-state vertical has not yet been built. But I have to give them credit: they keep on working, they don’t give up.
What can I say. Let’s remember that laughter is the most effective cure for fear. By setting traps for pranksters, the country’s current proprietors do not demonstrate their own strength. They only point up their own weak spots. By intimidating us and nurturing our fears, they demonstrate their own fear. It’s good to see this. Although this is cold consolation for someone who has been imprisoned for making a joke.
But to avoid succumbing to excessive pessimism (and thus delighting government officials), let’s recall these lines of verse by Nikolai Karamzin, the founding father of Russian historiography:
He who, bored, summons the Muses And the gentle Graces, their attendants, With poems and prose amuses Himself, strangers, and dependents, And laughs in all sincerity (Laughing is really not a sin!) At everything that makes him grin Will get along with the world in amity, And won’t cut short his days With sharp blades or poisons…
Alexander Bastyrkin, checking whether the internet is whitewashing Nazism. Photo: Russian Investigative Committee 