As war in Ukraine rages, Russians look on with increasing dismay

When Russia annexed Ukraine’s largely Russian-populated territory of Crimea in 2014, it was met with a palpable joy among Russians.

What a difference eight years makes.

Today, despite the fog of war and a deepening crackdown on civil society, surprising numbers of Russians are expressing shock at and even outright opposition to their country’s escalating invasion of Ukraine.

As Russian forces close in on Kyiv and other key Ukrainian cities, and the prospect of hard fighting and large-scale casualties looms, the sort of welcome that the bloodless reunification with Crimea enjoyed – and its coinciding spike in popularity of Russian President Vladimir Putin – seems largely absent today.

Even the tone of Russian state TV is not jubilant as it was then, but more insistent on the patriotic imperative to “support the troops” in time of war.

“There is a feeling that the whole world has turned against Russia, and that we can never win this,” says Olga Kryshtanovskaya, one of Russia’s leading sociologists. Her husband is Ukrainian, and like many Russians, she has close contacts in Ukraine. “Putin has lost a lot of support among the elite. It turns out their loyalty comes at a high price. Some people in my own circle have a different point of view from mine, so I decided to break off contacts with them. It’s not just a difference of political views anymore. It’s a moral discrepancy.

“More people are switching from TV to internet sources. Everyone is looking for truthful information. No one is interested in Russian or Ukrainian propaganda; people want independent and neutral information.”

A social (media) shift

Increasing numbers of Russians, especially the young, no longer take their news from official sources. They turn to the internet, especially the messaging app Telegram, where even Ukrainian-based channels are readily available. Despite attempts by Russia’s state media censor, Roskomnadzor, to slow or obscure the sharing of war-related content on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms, the measures seem so far almost childishly easy to evade.

Zoya Svetova, a journalist and human rights activist, says she doesn’t watch television at all. “I compare different opinions on the social nets. Many people are accessing and reading Ukrainian sites,” she says. “Social media has a lot of advantages. You can hear witnesses speaking about their experiences. There are videos of bombings, destruction, and so on. Many different views can be heard. The authorities realize that social media is a weapon, and that’s why they are trying to limit it.”

It’s early yet, and analysts caution that much depends on the course of the war going forward. But in recent days, tens of thousands of anti-war activists have protested in major Russian cities, and at least 5,000 have been detained. An online petition demanding an immediate end to the war has garnered almost a million signatures, while open letters of condemnation have proliferated, including one signed by over 6,000 doctors and medical workers, and another by more than 5,000 architects.

Leonid Gozman, an opposition politician, says he senses an approaching sea change in public opinion.

“I myself stood in a one-man picket [on Sunday] in the center of Moscow with a sign that said ‘No to War!’ and ‘Putin Must Resign!’ and not a single person expressed a negative opinion to me,” he says. “On the contrary, many came over to offer their support.” Solitary pickets are one of the few forms of protest that do not require an official permit under Russian law.

It’s hard to gauge whether Mr. Putin’s vaunted popularity has taken a hit after several rambling speeches in which he revealed sweeping war objectives that would spell the end of sovereign Ukraine. A CNN poll published barely a week ago found that half of Russians would support the use of force to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO. Pollsters say those numbers are probably holding up so far. But there seems little doubt that the war has polarized Russians more than any event in recent years.

The Kremlin’s red lines

Russian authorities describe the ongoing war as a “special operation” and have made clear that public use of non-approved terminology might entail legal consequences.

“A lot of people have understood that they need to watch what they say,” says Alexei Makarkin, deputy director of the Center of Political Technologies, an independent Moscow think tank. “Our laws are elastic, as is the way courts interpret them. We have a law about false information, introduced in 2020 and meant to combat fakes about the COVID pandemic. Information coming from the state is considered reliable, hence the term ‘special operation’ is approved for use. But words like ‘war’ and ‘invasion’ are regarded as fake news, and people who say that can face fines.”

According to the independent online news outlet Meduza, Russian schools are being issued official guidelines for how to discuss the situation with students. For example: “To a possible question ‘Is this a war with Ukraine? Do we need to do this?’ the teacher is advised to answer, ‘There is no war with Ukraine, but a special peacekeeping operation, the purpose of which is to contain the nationalists who oppress the Russian-speaking population.’”

The tone on state TV programs is surprisingly muted, says Masha Lipman, senior associate at the PONARS Eurasia program at George Washington University.

“On state TV talk shows you can often hear people saying things like, ‘No one likes war, but once you’re in it, you’d better win,’” she says. “It sends the message that anti-war activism is wrong and inappropriate when Russian troops are fighting in the field. Being a pacifist may sound noble on principle, but in such times you should be patriotic and support the troops.”

Still, some Russian oligarchs have publicly taken just that pacifist position. Billionaires Mikhail Fridman and Oleg Deripaska both called for an end to the conflict, in a break with the Kremlin line. And Kremlin insider and Chelsea F.C. owner Roman Abramovich is reportedly trying to help facilitate peace talks between Ukraine and Russia.

Much will depend on how long the war goes on, and how bad its fallout becomes for the Russian public, says Sergei Davidis, a lawyer with the now-banned human rights group Memorial.

“Yes, the majority of the population is silent. They are always silent,” he says. “But more and more people are already getting involved in anti-war activities. If the war takes an unsuccessful turn, and there is a dramatic worsening of the economic pain and isolation faced by Russians, we can expect those numbers to grow. All the more so since no one can explain why on earth Russia even needs this war?”