Vladimir Putin (right) in a meeting with Defense Minister Sergej Shoigu last weekend. Photo: GAVRIIL GRIGOROV / AFP / NTB
One in four Russians say they do not know why Vladimir Putin declared full-scale war on Ukraine. The rest disagree about why he did it. – But people are afraid to say what they think, says a well-known Russian journalist to VG.
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One in four Russians do not know why Putin declared war on Ukraine, according to a poll by Levada, which has been labeled a “foreign agent”. More than half of Russians want to end the war and hold peace talks with Ukraine. 41% would not have started the war in February 2022 , if they were allowed to choose now. Yevgeniy Golovchenko at the University of Copenhagen thinks it is interesting to see the division in Russian society about the war election. Warnings that opinion polls in Russia during the war are not necessarily reliable. Show more
The polling institute Levada, which has been given the label “foreign agent” by the Russian authorities “foreign agent” When an organization receives the label “foreign agent”, all material they publish must be labeled with this. The background is usually that they receive financial support from abroad. In practice, it is a way for the authorities to label organisations, media etc. that they do not like., is behind the measurement.
More than half of Russians now say they want to end the war and hold peace talks with Ukraine.
– But it is not clear from the question what kind of peace negotiations it is about, says Yevgeniy Golovchenko at the Department of Political Science at the University of Copenhagen to VG.
He explains that there are three possible scenarios:
Ukraine surrenders. The war is “frozen” and Russia gets to keep the conquered areas. Russia withdraws completely from Ukraine and thus loses the war.
– Therefore, it is difficult to interpret these results unequivocally as opposition or support for the war.
41 percent of Russians say that they would not have started the war in February 2022, if they had the chance to decide again. 43 percent say that they would support the war – also if they could decide again. 23 percent of Russians say that they don’t know why Russia went to war against Ukraine.
– It is interesting that there seems to be a division in society about whether the “military special operation” should have been started at all, and that there are many people who cannot explain why Russia is at war, Yevgeniy Golovchenko believes.
He adds:
– It is still not necessarily an expression of “regret”, as there is still considerable support for the war now that it has begun.
Of those who “know” why Putin went to war, there are different opinions:
25 percent say it was done to defend/liberate the Russians in the Donbas area. 14 percent say it was to stop fascism. 13 percent believe it was to stop aggression from Ukraine/the West. 12 percent say it was to defend Russia’s borders. 10 percent believe that Ukraine is historically Russian territory. 6 percent believe it is to prevent having NATO at its borders and to prevent Ukraine from becoming a member of NATO.Info
Young Russians most critical
Young Russians are most critical of the war – or the “special operation”, as Vladimir Putin calls it.
69 per cent aged 18–24 want to start peace talks now (average 56 per cent).
56 percent of those aged 18–24 would not have started the war if they could decide now (average 41 percent).
69 per cent aged 18–24 say they do not follow what is happening in the war (average 50 per cent).
62 percent of those aged 18–24 support the war in Ukraine (average 76 percent).
Source: Levada
Sea view
Yevgeniy Golovchenko finds it interesting that half of Russians say they don’t follow the war that much:
– The figures support the point that many Russians choose to keep the war mentally at a distance in their everyday lives – in an attempt to continue their lives as before. It could be of great importance both for the Russian government and Ukraine.
Both Golovchenko and Natalia Moen-Larsen at the Norwegian Institute of Foreign Policy nevertheless warn against drawing too big conclusions from opinion polls in Russia during the war:
– You cannot trust that they correctly reflect what the situation actually is, says Moen-Larsen.
– It has become significantly more difficult to create opinion polls in Russia, especially after the invasion in 2022, when the government tightened the censorship laws, says Golovchenko.
AUTHOR: Mikhail Zygar. Photo: Private / Private
The well-known author Mikhail Zygar says this when VG asks about support for the war:
– According to my calculations, most Russians do not support this war. Russia started a brutal, unjust war of aggression, says the author behind the book “War and Punishment”.
The profiled Novaja Gazeta journalist Jelena Milasjina puts it this way to VG:
– Nobody knows what the Russian people really think. The authorities definitely have the support of part of the Russian people, who want to continue the war. But I still don’t think it’s more than five to ten percent of the population. The vast majority of Russians behave as if life is going on as normal.
– People are afraid to say what they really mean, states Milasjina.
PS: 1,600 Russians are interviewed in Levada’s survey.
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Published: 15.11.23 at 23:37
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2023-11-15 22:37:16
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