It's no secret that the world is largely united against Russia and its invasion of Ukraine,
but it might surprise you just how the Russian people feel about this invasion.
To understand the Russian people and their support for Vladimir Putin, first you have to understand
Russian culture and society. Unlike many countries who experienced great evil in the past,
Russians never truly came to terms with the abuses of the Soviet Union. In fact, most Russians today
still believe that Joseph Stalin was a great man- despite the fact that he imprisoned and
killed millions of his own people. In 2016, the dead dictator's approval rating was 54%
in a poll conducted by the Moscow Times. In 2019 though 70% of Russians polled
by the independent Levada Center said that Stalin played a favorable role for Russia.
Over half of those surveyed even said that they personally viewed Stalin favorably.
In May of 2021, a new poll showed that 56 percent of Russians viewed Stalin as a great leader.
South Africa actively strode for racial reconciliation after apartheid,
the United States has made civil rights for people of color and other minorities a front
and center issue in domestic politics for decades, and Germany has completely denounced its Nazi past
and actively works to educate its own children on the horrors of the regime,
convinced that such a thing should never happen again. All of these countries- and
more- have acknowledged their past and taken responsibility for it,
while taking steps to rehabilitate their societies from the ill effects of said past. It may be
an ongoing process in some cases, but the fact that it's happening at all is what's important.
Russia has never experienced a collective reconciliation over the brutality of the
Soviet regime, and this explains much about current attitudes on Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
Rather than acknowledge all the evil of leaders like Stalin and the great economic and physical
harm caused by the Soviet Union, the Russian people have shifted the blame
to various groups. A common sentiment in response to the evils of the Soviets is,
“that was the Bolsheviks”. Bafflingly, sometimes Russia's favorite bogeyman-
the United States- is to blame. Culpability is constantly deflected from one group to another,
and the Russian people aren't completely to blame for this lack of self-accountability.
Since 2021 it has been illegal in Russia to deny that the Soviet Union played a “decisive role” in
overcoming fascism during World War II, and it is likewise illegal to equate the war crimes of the
Soviet Union- of which there were many- with those committed by Nazi Germany. In Russian schools,
history is taught selectively, with many of the Soviet regime's worst abuses either played down
or simply not taught. Vladimir Putin even went to great lengths to spin the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany as a diplomatic victory- this pact outlined how eastern
Europe would be carved out by the two world powers, and was so shameful to even Soviet leaders
that Mikhail Gorbachev publicly denied it and attempted to rewrite the history behind the pact.
This time of historical rewriting by Vladimir Putin's administration helps us understand
why so many Russians support the war in Ukraine today. In 2005, just a few years
after Putin's ascension to power, 40 percent of those polled agreed that Stalin had absolutely
decimated the Red Army's leadership prior to World War II with his paranoid purges. This
is of course a matter of historical fact, and the reason why the Soviets performed
so astonishingly poorly during the Winter War against the much smaller Finland. Yet in 2021,
only 17 percent of respondents agreed on the 2005 question. Putin has spent considerable
resources to rewrite Russian's understanding of their own history, fully in preparation for his
orchestration of a return to repressive Soviet times- under his firm leadership of course.
Anyone who tries to bring up the real history of the Soviet Union is painted as a “foreign agent”-
probably American ones at that as Putin has turned the US into a national bogeyman who's
hiding under every bed and in every closet. His total information control doesn't just extend
to the past though, but also to the present, as media in Russia is now the least free it has been
since the strictest days of censorship during the Soviet Union. Journalists who dug too deep into
issues the Kremlin did not want exposed, or who wrote articles the Kremlin didn't like, were often
discovered dead or missing. For a while, Russia was officially one of the most dangerous places to
be a reporter in- and this included places like active war zones in Africa or the Middle East.
After the invasion of Ukraine, Putin's control over the media has only tightened to the point
that the average Russian receives a steady diet of pure propaganda. It is now illegal in Russia
to refer to the war in Ukraine as anything other than a “special military operation”, and this
law is enforced with steep fines and as much as fifteen years in prison. Putin has also passed a
law that is in essence the widest sweeping form of censorship that Russia has seen in decades.
It is not just illegal to call the war anything other than a “special military operation”,
but it is also illegal to write, post, or say anything meant to “hurt Russian morale” or “spread
misinformation”. What actually counts as hurting Russian morale or misinformation is of course,
left up to the Kremlin. This gives Putin and his administration incredible power
to shape narratives on the war in Ukraine any way they wish.
So how do Russians feel about the war?
Given Russia's lack of free speech and government interference in most media, getting accurate data
is rather difficult. However, polls conducted by independent and not-so-independent agencies
across Russia since the start of the invasion all clearly show overwhelming support for the
Russian invasion of Ukraine. One survey showed sixty five percent were in favor of the invasion,
while a second showed seventy one. Independent polls routinely show figures above 50% approval.
How can so many Russians support one of the most horific conflicts in Europe since World War II?
There's a reason why Putin has insisted that the war be called a “special military operation”.
It's careful phrasing that is meant to encourage the Russian people that there is no war,
just a low-grade military operation. This is no different than a military operation the US might
undertake to eliminate a new Al-Qaeda cell in a remote corner of Africa- military operations are
routine and even more importantly, not very wide sweeping. This is important, because despite the
two nations having taken wildly different paths since the fall of the Soviet Union,
Ukraine is still seen as a “brother nation” to most Russians. The two share much of the
same history and culture, and large amounts of the population speak the same language. The
kinship was so close that before the war Russian troops in the first few weeks of the fighting
were genuinely shocked that they had been greeted not as liberators, but as invaders and occupiers.
Putin admitting to the Russian people that he was launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine
would be like President Biden announcing that the United States was going to invade Britain.
It's an unthinkable proposition for the American people to see
themselves at war with a nation they consider to be a true brother nation,
and likewise the Russian people would be shocked to find out the truth about the brutality of
Russian actions inside Ukraine. The careful language allows Putin to minimize this outrage,
but also allows him to craft the narrative that he needs to continue gaining Russian support.
By framing the invasion as a special military operation,
Putin has convinced many of the Russian people that this war is actually about securing the
safety of the Russian-speaking population of the Donbas. But Putin still needed a bogeyman,
someone that the Russian people would see as an enemy. That's why he tapped into history.
Putin's public justification for the invasion was that he was cleansing
Ukraine of the threat of neo-Nazism. To the world this is a ridiculous proposition,
but to many Russians it's an issue near and dear to their hearts. Their nation after all
suffered more than any other at the hands of the Nazis during the Second World War,
thus by painting this as a conflict against a resurgence of Nazism that threatened fellow
Russian speakers, Putin was able to portray this as a heroic, and moral war. The fact that these
imaginary Nazis are right outside Russia's borders only helps those spinning this war
as a fight against fascism. Even the fact that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is Jewish
has been spun by Russian propagandists, who point out that Hitler also had Jewish blood in him.
When Russia immediately ran into trouble inside Ukraine, not even the tightest of information
control could stop the slow realization that this was no small-scale military operation-
Russia was at full-scale war and its military needed to mobilize as such. The impact of
the fighting is so intense, that an estimated 20% of all Russian tanks have been destroyed-
though this relies only on visual confirmation and thus the real total is indubitably much higher.
3,342 armored vehicles have been confirmed destroyed, damaged, abandoned, or captured
by Ukrainian forces. 115 combat aircraft have also been destroyed, damaged, or captured.
Now Putin needed to justify the broadening of the “special military operation” into a full-scale
war, and to do this he once more summoned the favorite Russian bogeyman: the United States of
America. The new narrative is that NATO, at the behest of the US, is fighting a proxy war against
Russia, while extremists inside of Ukraine pull the strings and force their army and population to
fight a war they don't really want to. Casualties are estimated to have reached as high 20,000 dead,
with Ukraine claiming to have confirmed 18,900 as of April 8th via bodies they have personally
collected or intercepted intelligence reports. Yet the Kremlin has cleverly spun this as the
work of NATO and the United States, thus rallying the Russian people against the much-hated West.
But not all Russians support the invasion. In fact, 6,500 people were arrested across
53 cities in Russia during February 24th to March 2nd in
anti-war protests as tens of thousands took to the streets.
However, the passage of new censorship laws have taken the wind out of the sails of any Russians
who oppose the invasion, as they live in fear of arrest for their anti-war views. Russian police
have even been documented searching vehicles and homes for evidence of anti-war sentiments, and
Russia is slowly reverting back to a Soviet-era culture of neighbors snitching on neighbors.
One thing is clear though, while most Russians support the war in Ukraine,
young Russians are the demographic most likely to not support the invasion, and since the start of
the war hundreds of thousands of them have left Russia. Turkey has become a hotbed of
anti-war and anti-Putin sentiment amongst Russians who have fled their own country,
as the EU will not allow passage for anyone with a Russian passport. While Russia has disconnected
much of global social media from itself, young Russians are more likely to be able to know how to
bypass national internet blocks via VPNs, and this exposes them to international news where they can
see the truth about the consequences of the brutal war in Ukraine. Translating that to the older
population however has not been as successful, and many young Russians report that they no
longer speak with parents or grandparents over their difference of views on the war.
Putin may have the support of the majority of the population, but he has very little support
amongst the two segments of the population that matter most: young people and military conscripts.
With conscripts making up a quarter of Russian forces, by the end of the war there will be
tens of thousands of Russian conscripts returning home with their own version of the war to share.
Here it’s important to note that the February revolution of 1917 which overthrew the Tzar
was largely premeditated by the return of thousands of disillusioned troops from their
time at the front. As casualties mount the reality of the war will begin to sink home with average
Russians who have lost husbands, brothers, and fathers in Ukraine, and Putin won't be
able to deflect for long the anger of thousands of families grieving loved ones by blaming the West.
Now go check out What Is Wrong With Russia's Military- or click this other video instead.