By the end of 2023, Russians who support a troop withdrawal from Ukraine “without achieving the war goals” were for the first time more numerous than those who oppose such a move. Ordinary Russians consider the war to be the most important negative fact in their lives and want it to end quickly. This is the conclusion reached by independent sociologists working for Khroniky (“Chronicles”) and the Public Sociology Laboratory projects. It is backed up by those who measure public opinion for the Kremlin. Other analysts – from Z-bloggers [pro-war bloggers] to clinical psychologists – have also noticed a lack of mass support for the war effort. They all observe that Russians are not ready to protest to end the war, but nonetheless expect Vladimir Putin to end it. As the March presidential election approaches, the Kremlin’s political strategists seem to be trying to meet this demand. “The desire to end the war is at its peak now” “Perhaps there will be a coup of far-right dissenters.” “[After the war] we will be worrying that Ukraine will come to us – like Napoleon did to Moscow.” “It will get worse – because the sanctions are working harder and harder.” “If the war ends next year, the economic recovery will begin in two years.” “Just give us peace – that’s all!” These are not statements by opposition politicians or journalists, but quotes from ordinary Russians. The people were taking part in focus groups conducted last autumn by researchers from Khroniki, the Public Sociology Laboratory, and ExtremeScan in four Russian cities. Researcher Oleg Zhuravlev explains to Verstka: “We looked at how people expressed their attitudes to the war in real conversation with each other. Already in December, the data from our interviews and focus groups was supplemented with new data from our volunteer ethnographers. They travelled to different regions, villages and towns, including frontline towns. They lived there for several weeks, integrated into the local community and tried to understand how people were experiencing wartime. The conclusion: the desire to end the war as soon as possible is now at its peak since the war began. And the share of people who support escalation is falling.” In the opinion of this sociologist, this desire is getting stronger despite the fact that “people have got used to the war and are living with it”. Judging by the reports on focus groups, which have been reviewed by Verstka, the reasons for Russians’ war fatigue are mainly material. The country’s economic situation is deteriorating and inflation is soaring. “Prices are rising, real income is collapsing, and you can no longer afford a lot of things, sometimes even minimally important things”, was a typical assessment of one participant. ‘The moral condemnation of the war in society, although strong, has not yet turned into an anti-war political position’ – Oleg Zhuravlev, sociologist Another remarked that “due to the increase in prices, although wages have not changed, it feels as if they have”. In addition, participants believed that “sanctions are working and getting stronger”, while they do not see much success in import substitution. Most importantly, they do not rate their future prospects highly as long as the war drags on. A frequent answer to the question about plans for the future sounds something like this: “Plans depend on the war, so I am not planning far ahead.” These are not isolated opinions and figures. In October 2023, according to sociologists from Khroniky, the share of Russians who wanted the war to end without achieving its goals surpassed those in favour of its continuation for the first time: 40% of respondents versus 33%. “The share of those who would not support the withdrawal of troops has been consistently falling. In February 2023, they were 47%; in July, they were already 39%,” notes Chronicles. “Calmer” Kremlin propagandists and “whining” war bloggers Indeed, in public, the Russian president is trying not to focus directly on the fighting, as he once did. Even on 14 December, during the year-end “Direct Line” [a public Q&A] and press conference, Putin spoke about military operations only in reference to the mobilised soldiers. The president said they were “fighting very well” and that there were 14 Heroes of Russia among them. But even this caused indignation among the “target audience” – the families of mobilised men – since Putin made no announcements about the soldiers’ return home. The head of state mentioned Ukraine only in connection with its “national hero Stepan Bandera” [a 1940s radical nationalist] and the confrontation with the West. Meanwhile, Russian television propagandists have “become calmer”, says journalist Maria Borzunova. As she sees it, “the standard line on TV of ‘not a step backwards’ is still there” but feels more confident than a year ago. This has been fuelled by events on the front, the unsuccessful Ukrainian counter-offensive, and the eruption of other world conflicts involving Ukraine’s allies – in particular, the Israeli army’s retaliatory operation in the Gaza Strip following the terrorist attack there. “The general mood now is confidence that ‘we will finish the job’ and that we will definitely win. No one is talking about peace talks on TV”, notes Borzunova. She adds that at the end of its second year, the war is no longer dominating news in either the West or Russia: “There have been other developments that are somewhat related to the war, but they are not the war itself. In this sense, it will be interesting to look at what happens in broadcast entertainment. Last year, the war even penetrated that space – there were indirect calls to sign up to volunteer at the front. I wonder if they will return to their usual state of affairs.” The detachment of ordinary Russians from the war is a source of particular ire for Z-bloggers. These are representatives of the 12% of Russians who favour a war until victory, which tends to mean the capture of at least Odesa, Kharkiv and Kyiv. Receive the best of European journalism straight to your inbox every Thursday Ivan Filipov, a writer who studies the work of these hawkish Russian bloggers and runs a Telegram channel called “All quiet on the Zzzzzzzz front” which monitors “only the best and high quality whining from the main pro-war bloggers”, believes that it is precisely the posts of these bloggers that “make clear how much Russians are tired of the war”. “They have been complaining from the very beginning that there is no money, no support, not enough volunteers”, explains Filipov. “Lately, they have become downright angry about this and they’re saying that the Russian people have let them down – they don’t donate, they don’t die, they don’t go to the front. Every time they realise that the support is marginal at best, that the ‘heroes of the special operation’ are actually being beaten, humiliated, not allowed into hotels, not allowed into bars and restaurants in their homeland – they take it very badfully.” He says that the specific content of the Z-bloggers has also changed: “Strategic texts have almost disappeared. They write less and less about war plans and goals. This is because they realise that there are no forces for anything more than advancing a few hundred metres. There is no new mobilisation, and it seems that there will be none. Might the writers themselves be getting war fatigue? Maybe, but I’m not ready to say that.” By the end of the year 2023, the war in Ukraine had definitely ceased to be the central topic for Russian internet users. ‘Powerlessness, apathy, unwillingness to do something about it oneself’ Polina Grundmane is creator of the psychological outreach project Without Prejudice. “People who turn to us for psychological support are now in the kind of state where they feel the need to join some group. They are looking for direction. The opposition-minded ones are essentially no different from those they oppose”, details Grundmane. Without Prejudice supports Russian-speakers in need of personal or group therapy because of the war in Ukraine. In 21 months of work, the project’s psychologists have conducted 4,415 hours of counselling. 1,300 people have sought individual crisis help, all with signs of depression, and more than 2,000 people have sought group psychotherapy. The project positions itself as an anti-war initiative, so it attracts Russians who are sceptical of the government and do…
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