What do Russians think of the war in Ukraine? Russia-Ukraine war News

What do Russians think of the war in Ukraine? Russia-Ukraine war News


This is particularly true in the regions of Russia most heavily targeted by Putin’s mobilization. Some of the first data FilterLabs gathered after the invasion was from the republic of Buryatia, a mostly rural, underdeveloped region 3,700 miles from Moscow and bordering Mongolia. Many of those

drafted into the Russian army regardless of age, military experience and medical history come from ethnic minority dominant regions like Buryatia. In April, a national propaganda campaign created a positive spike in local sentiment in Buryatia towards the war that lasted for 12 days before reverting to pre-campaign levels. Sentiment analysis is a well-tested form of artificial intelligence that trains computers to read and understand human-generated text and speech.

  • "We must understand that polls show us not what people really think or really believe, but what they want to share," he says.
  • "But apart from the fear, there is a sense of horror and a sense of shame about what our authorities are doing. In my circle of friends this is a very common feeling.
  • One-quarter of respondents say they already feel the effect of those sanctions, according to Volkov.
  • He calculates that the greater (though still limited) involvement of the Russian population in Ukraine may push Russians to support their boys in uniform more strongly.
  • “Inside Russia the West is presented as a villain that is abusing Ukraine to undermine Russia’s greatness.

Volkov says these polls are conducted face-to-face, and people are assured of anonymity. Still, he notes, the survey results reveal at least as much about what people are willing to say in public than about how they truly feel. The roots of Russia's invasion of Ukraine go back decades and run deep. The current conflict is more than one country fighting to take over another; it is — in the words of one U.S. official — a shift in "the world order."Here are some helpful stories to make sense of it all.

No region in Ukraine says Ukraine and Russia should be one country

By that, he means that those who were most connected to the outside world might have been less inclined to support Putin's military operation, but now find themselves cut off from the West. That means they're on conflicting sides — and feel the shunning of Russia most of all. Volkov adds that public opinion matters, even though the Russian government isn't taking the public's pulse in order to plan its next moves. He says officials are instead monitoring the situation to make sure that it's "under control." To train and equip that larger army would inevitably require more money. The government says it wants to spend 2.5% of national income on defence - but has still not said when.

Opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who has been serving prison time since 2021 after leading street protests and starting a nationwide opposition movement, was recently moved to a penal colony in Russia's far north. However, Mr Orban's political director said this morning that Hungary was open to using the EU budget to allow further aid for Ukraine. Prime Minister Viktor Orban has been highly critical of the EU's financial and military aid for Ukraine and has maintained close ties with Russia. Mr Zelenskyy has called for public officials to disclose their incomes to increase transparency and eliminate corruption as Ukraine tries to meet the stringent requirements for its bid to join the European Union. Only aircraft deployed to protect energy facilities, or those carrying top Russian or foreign officials, will be allowed to fly with special permission in the designated zones, according to the Vedomosti daily newspaper.

Zelensky condemned for claiming Russian regions

This data tells a different story about Russian public opinion, especially outside Moscow — a story Putin will not like. The data reveal that while a narrow majority of Russians think their government should start peace negotiations (53 percent), returning any territory to Ukraine as concessions in a negotiation would be overwhelmingly unacceptable to the public. Most of the Russian public also opposes any use of nuclear weapons by Moscow. For months, Russians of all political stripes tuned out American warnings that their country could soon invade Ukraine, dismissing them as an outlandish concoction in the West’s disinformation war with the Kremlin. But this week, after several television appearances by Mr. Putin stunned and scared some longtime observers, that sense of casual disregard turned to a deep unease. But 66 percent of Russians aged between 18 and 24 have a positive or very positive attitude toward Ukraine.

  • It means that some of the population will have had some military training - and can then be assigned to reserve units should war break out.
  • It’s easy to imagine that they feel they can’t—or don’t want to—get arrested for opposing a distant war because of these kinds of responsibilities, even if it is being waged in their name.
  • Mr Putin has a long record of masterfully manipulating public sentiment.
  • To put it simply, before launching an offensive, it’s worth thinking about who will fight in that offensive and how willingly, and to what extent an active conflict will prompt people to rally around Putin.

“The Kyiv regime is continuing to show its vicious side in that they are striking civilian infrastructure. They are striking people, civilians,” he said, adding that the attack on the same day in Donetsk which killed 25 was a “heinous act of terrorism”. https://euronewstop.co.uk/who-predicted-russia-ukraine-war.html was killed and his daughter wounded in a Russian attack on an eastern Ukrainian city on Monday morning. Britain has loosened travel restrictions on four western Ukrainian regions.

Russia's Shifting Public Opinion on the War in Ukraine

“The feeling of the inevitability of war from the life of Russians, the feeling that the war is now with us, and we are with this life, caused the emergence of new meanings of war,” Zhuravlev said. “For example, a person says, 'I support,' but then researchers will follow up with questions to determine if they are ready to go to war, ready to donate to the Russian army or expect benefits from a possible victory," Koneva explained. In a written response to questions, she said that despite the self-censorship, pollsters "can usually have higher confidence in the reliability of poll findings that show some fluctuation over time." Vladimir Putin’s Russia has sharply constricted the space for free expression in recent years, but some independent pollsters who fled the country have not abandoned their work. One-quarter of respondents say they already feel the effect of those sanctions, according to Volkov.

  • There are, however, Russian independent media who still defy government restrictions.
  • “We discussed with the prime minister that all critical issues that exist can be resolved at the level of governments, and work on this will begin shortly,” Mr Zelensky said.
  • People are arrested for even walking around the area where a protest was scheduled.
  • Russia's invasion of Ukraine has focussed the West's military minds.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has focussed the West's military minds. “Britain has, again, as with all of those other things, led the way with a £2.5billion package and a security agreement, a cooperation agreement with president Zelensky and Ukraine. The Russian foreign secretary flew on an unspecified “northern route to bypass unfriendly countries” in 12 hours and 45 minutes, Russian state news agency Tass reported. Ukrainian drones attacked a St Petersburg oil terminal on Friday and another 110 miles west at Ust-Luga on Sunday. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) think tank said fears of “hypothetical Nato attacks” meant the Leningrad Oblast was not well-placed to defend attacks by Ukrainian drones coming from the south.

  • "We have never seen war in our lifetime and we are about to see one."
  • Earlier this month, its civil defence minister told a defence conference "there could be a war in Sweden".
  • I mean – there is probably a way to go to Russia, but almost zero way for me to come back to study, and as a new semester is coming, I’m not risking it.
  • The fraught nature of their decisions to enlist will increase their hostility toward those who make the opposite choice.
  • It is difficult to get any reliable information out of Russia, but our research suggests the Kremlin’s hold on its people is perhaps not what it is made out to be.

Surveys have suggested that the majority of Russians support the invasion. But it is difficult to determine how reliable these surveys are, in light of new crackdowns on free speech and dissent in Russia, where even the use of the word “war” to describe the invasion is now a crime. In the meantime, sanctions affect every Russian citizen in their daily lives – both those who support and those who oppose the war, those at home and those abroad. The results from organisations such as Russian Field and Chronicles do not tally with binary stereotypes of all Russians as either fascist automatons or repressed westernisers dreaming of a Eurocentric future.

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