Do Russians Support the War in Ukraine?

Russians are fed up with the current government and recognize that its leaders not only profit from the war but also from exploiting and selling out the country.

For example, former President Medvedev owns vineyards in Tuscany. The spokesperson Peskov’s daughter, Liza, owns penthouses in Paris with views of the Champs-Élysées. Many officials have moved their wealth abroad, including to the United States. A former mayor of Khabarovsk, a key city near the Chinese border, left Russia, purchased multiple properties in California, and is frequently spotted at a well-known banya in San Francisco.

The list goes on.

Ordinary citizens see this happening and are increasingly determined to avoid mandatory military drafts—just as it’s currently happening in Ukraine.

> The massage therapist, a war supporter, was happy to talk. She gave an interesting description of her media consumption. “On the Internet,” she explained, there are so many fakes: “You have to figure out that this is a fake, this is not a fake.” Whereas with the news on TV, “you watch it for the day and you’re done. No problem.” As for the war, it was hard for the massage therapist to say who started it and why.

> “But we started it,” Marina said.

> “Who’s we?” said the massage therapist.

> “Well, I mean, Putin started it,” Marina said.

> The invocation of Putin seemed to set the massage therapist off. She lost her temper and threatened Marina, saying that she would “call someone” who would come to straighten out Marina on the subject of Putin and the war.

That one anecdote pretty much sums up the article in my opinion. A combination of opinions derived from a media silo (one that’s especially difficult to get out of because most Russian language media is, of course, produced in Russia and subject to Kremlin regulations), reluctance to question established beliefs, cult of personality/hero worship around Putin, and fear of government reprisal.

  For Aida, the experience of Buryatia was powerful in another way. Her parents are war supporters. The past three years have tested her bond with them, though when we spoke recently, over Zoom, she was home for a visit. Spending time with the friendly women sewing camouflage netting for Russian snipers made her think more deeply, she said, about the nature of evil. “I very often see people whose views are horrible, whose views make me want to throw up, and I don’t understand how a person can talk that way or think that way. But they turn out to be absolutely ordinary people,” she said. What to do with this observation is something she’s still pondering.

Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland by Christopher R. Browning examines the same phenomenon. He follows the war record of a police battalion made up of middle-aged, working-class men from Hamburg. They murdered men, women and children in occupied Poland. They were not young fanatics who had been raised and brainwashed under Nazism, nor were they forced to take part in the murders. Those who wished to opt out were allowed to do so, and some were even promoted after stepping away. Despite this, only 12 out of ~500 men refused to participate in the mass murders of innocent people. Browning concludes that peer pressure can turn "ordinary" people into a highly efficient killing machine, and that the small number of dissenters can be safely ignored, because they have little impact on the overall outcome.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062303023

Behind a paywall, otherwise would have read. However, I do appreciate the approach to poll how the masses actually feel about what decisions their overlords are implementing. I feel like the former is as important, if not more so than the latter - every story/ongoing coverage involving war/major international moves and events should cover both perspectives continuously IMO.

How does the Chinese populous actually feel about the prospect of having to lose loved ones in a seemingly imminent invasion of Taiwan? How does the Taiwanese populous feel about that prospect and the US/allies coming to their aid. How does the US populous feel about the prospect of defending Taiwan (do the even understand the issues at stake)?

Why do I have to search for answers to these questions so regularly instead of reading about it in the very article reporting the event in the first place?

Does it matter? They either can't or worn't do anything to stop it. If they're even bothered by it, they won't say (For obvious reasons).

Do Americans? Does it matter? They either can't or won't do anything to stop it.