And if I am not imprisoned soon for speaking out against war, I want to try – together with like-minded people – to do everything I can to give our country hope for a peaceful future. Was hatred a natural and ultimately inevitable response to the atrocities Ukrainians were being subjected to? Does it change anything to know that many Russians oppose Putin’s war but are powerless to stop him, or to understand that others have been duped into supporting it through his hyper-nationalistic discourse? A few weeks after my trip, I contacted Peter Pomerantsev, who had accompanied me from Lviv to Kyiv. He had been born in Kyiv in 1977, when Ukraine was still a part of the Soviet Union, but was brought up and educated in the United Kingdom, after his parents went into exile there. He has worked in both London and Moscow, where he became an expert on Russian propaganda.
It is the duty of the military to analyse that threat, and they still might be proved wrong. But European nations closer to Russian borders appear to be taking it more seriously. A source familiar with the situation said the drone fell at about 7am local time but had not affected fuel output.
Russia threatens to seize £226bn in revenge for Western asset seizures
Even so, rather than taking place in different public locations around the city, as usual, the forum was convened in an underground theatre on the hilltop campus of Ukrainian Catholic University, a ten-minute drive from the city center. There, for three days, panelists addressed topics related to Ukraine, Russia, war, and culture. Early Thursday morning, any remaining skepticism that their country would invade was put to rest, when Mr. Putin declared a “special military operation” in Ukraine. To understand the nature and composition of the pro-war majority, you need to dig deeper. Russian state television—instrumental in shaping public opinion—serves all these audiences. The early polls can be treated, like surveys elsewhere, as genuine signals of Russian public opinion.
- Volkov found that some 80% of respondents do support the military, but that group is by no means a monolith.
- According to the Athena Project, a collective of sociologists and I.T.
- However, when it comes to family, I, unfortunately, do have a conflict with my parents.
- Surveys have suggested that the majority of Russians support the invasion.
- The economy hasn’t been stable for a long time and the sanctions haven’t gone away.
On some level, the data likely reflect an impulse, whether born of fear or passivity, to repeat approved messages rather than articulate your own. Even before the war, Russia was not the kind of place where you willy-nilly shared your political beliefs with strangers, let alone with those who called out of the blue. Where I am, people typically express their opinion at rallies, on social networks and among their inner circle.
Zelensky condemned for claiming Russian regions
Throughout the war, researchers have been trying to understand what factors would reduce public support in Russia. “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. Koneva said researchers found that people in this group, the largest single segment of the population, have contradictory attitudes toward the war, consisting of narratives from both sides of the conflict. https://euronewstop.co.uk/what-is-ukraines-neutral-status.html said her research group has focused on examining the opinions of the core audience that supports Russia’s war in Ukraine. At first glance, the Koneva group's most recent polls from Russia continue to show broad public support for the war.
“They are also of the opinion that, while Ukraine could not stand up to an all-out Russian invasion, Russia would lose much more from that than any military victory would win,” he said. “The reason why 75% of Russians think Russia will not invade Ukraine is simply because of what they read in their newspapers and see on their TV. There is basically no hysteria, no beating of the war drum, a consistent message that we do not want a war and will not start one,” Pozner said. “It speaks to the view that, should Ukraine become a NATO member, and should NATO forces be deployed on Russia’s doorstep, that would constitute an existential threat and therefore cannot be allowed,” Pozner told CNN by email. Across the country and across all ages, a majority of Ukrainians say they are not “one people” with Russians and that the two countries should not be one. But the poll also found that more Russians think it would be wrong than right to use military force “to reunite Russia and Ukraine” – two countries with a long and complicated history of being intertwined.
Ukraine’s foreign ministry has slapped down Slovakia’s prime minister for saying the war with Russia will only end when Kyiv gives up its claim to Crimea and the Donbas. Russian forces have advanced near the heavily-contested eastern town of Avdiivka, currently held by Ukraine, according to reports. Cuts have already seen the size of the British Army fall from more than 100,000 in 2010 to around 73,000 now. Gen Sanders said that within the next three years the British Army needed to be 120,000 strong with the addition of reserves. But he said even that is not enough - so the Army should be designed to expand rapidly "to enable the first echelon, resource the second echelon, and train and equip the citizen army that must follow".
For one thing the mobilisation was announced too late, when Russian troops were already being defeated by Ukrainian ones. For another, it has exposed how the centralised administrative machinery, built by Mr Putin, struggles in an emergency. That is because it is built on corruption and sycophancy, not competence. And as Russia's war in Ukraine continues, the U.S. and other Western allies are hitting it with more economic sanctions.
- Even so, rather than taking place in different public locations around the city, as usual, the forum was convened in an underground theatre on the hilltop campus of Ukrainian Catholic University, a ten-minute drive from the city center.
- Seven out of 10 respondents there said it would be wrong for Russia to use military force to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO (70%) or to reunite the two countries (73%).
- My sister was struggling to get baby products for my nephew because the prices skyrocketed.
The day before the start of the war, Putin told the nation of WWII-era promises not to expand NATO eastward and said those promises had been broken five times. Ukraine's flirtation with NATO membership pushed those fears into overdrive. I want peace, but my grandmother thinks our military is needed to protect Russians in eastern Ukraine. She supports our president, despite the fact that her whole family is still over there. When I hear it from Ukrainian people, I begin to doubt that our president’s strategy is wrong.
- The Polish prime minister’s visit to Ukraine represents a step towards rapprochement between the two countries after border blockades by Polish truckers.
- In fact, two out of three (65%) expect a peaceful end to the tensions between Russia and Ukraine.
- Was hatred a natural and ultimately inevitable response to the atrocities Ukrainians were being subjected to?
- I got a government email saying that we had until March 14 to download all files from Instagram.
Thousands of non-Ukrainians have served in its armed forces since Russia’s invasion in 2014. Ukrainian agricultural exports surged in December after it successfully forced Russia out of the western half of the Black Sea, Britain’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) has said. Ukraine’s armed forces have denied having anything to do with the attack. “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”.
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. A little earlier, we told you about a report in the Financial Times that the EU was proposing to sabotage Hungary's economy if Budapest blocks further aid for Ukraine this week. 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.
- For a few years, the unprecedented patriotic surge of 2014 served as symbolic compensation for the socioeconomic problems that had already begun.
- If researchers exclude this group and also exclude the 20% of Russians who admit they oppose the war, that leaves about half of the country's population who researchers say support the war only at the "declarative level."
- On Sunday evening, when sanctions against Russian central bank reserves were announced, you could still use an app to order a dollar for up to 140 roubles, and a euro for up to 150.
- At the start of 2022 one dollar traded for about 75 roubles and a euro for 80.
Kyiv estimates that 20,000 Ukrainian children have been forcibly deported to Russia. Moscow says it wants to protect these children from the fighting. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child is holding a two-day hearing on Russia’s record on the treatment of children.