Russians in the face of war: despondent and detached

Since Russia's full-scale assault on Ukraine, one question has kept resurfacing: how do "ordinary Russians" feel about the war?

Sergei Medvedev, an exiled Russian public intellectual, believes that his compatriots have now come to terms with the Ukraine war. Some may wave their hands and say they are not interested in what is happening, feigning a kind of caricatured neutrality. Some are genuinely against the war, but only in their minds – a sort of internal exile. Outside in the real world, any criticism will be met with social ostracism, persecution and imprisonment.

In Medvedev's view, these different attitudes are fundamentally similar in that they flee from any hint of action. For this reason they are just different shades in the palette of consent to war, says Medvedev in an interview he gave me for Nowa Europa Wschodnia (New Eastern Europe). For Russians, war is like a heavy uncomfortable coat that they wear anyway for lack of anything else in their wardrobe. It is like a yawning black hole which they try to steer clear of and avoid looking at. Occasionally something falls into it, lost forever.

It would be unrealistic to expect some anti-war democratic-spirited public uprising in Russia any time soon, just as it is foolish to hope that Putin's death will solve all our problems. But the war has nonetheless triggered major changes in Russian society. To better understand them, the Public Sociology Laboratory (PS Lab, an organisation with foreign-agent status in Russia) has been conducting research since the beginning of the 2022 Ukraine invasion. Its latest results, based on qualitative surveys in autumn 2023, have just been published.

Researchers from PS Lab spent a month living in three regions of Russia: Krasnodar Krai, Sverdlovsk Oblast and the Republic of Buryatia. There they listened to what people had to say about the war, interviewing them and also observing their daily lives. The Russian independent media has keenly quoted the main findings of the over-200-page report.

‘Who needs war? Nobody!’

One obvious trend emerges: Russians are shying away from the whole topic of war. They are reluctant to talk about it either in private or in public, even when propitious occasions present themselves. The report cites a particularly bizarre example of a farewell party for a Russian who had gone into the army. The event, attended by one of the researchers, was organised by the recruit’s circle of acquaintances. The researcher notes that the gathering was more like a birthday party than a pre-deployment wartime farewell. During the get-together, only one mention was made of the war itself, which was a quote from a popular song: "Who needs war? Nobody!"

In the regions where the study was conducted, the researchers noticed something else: the disappearance of wartime imagery. The letter "Z" has vanished from the facades of buildings, including government buildings. Pro-war stickers are gone from private cars. On the other hand, there is a growing movement of volunteers to support soldiers at the front. This was most evident in Buryatia. This small and poor Russian republic is the source of many contract and mobilised soldiers, and has suffered a disproportionate death toll. Today, Buryatian women are getting together to weave camouflage nets, and collections are held in offices and workplaces for other supplies.

But even here the situation is not without paradox, since opponents of the war are throwing themselves into these efforts too. For the sake of their own mental wellbeing, or because they do not want to rock the boat, or simply to help their loved ones at the front, such dissidents are choosing to donate or to prepare parcels for the front alongside other volunteers. It is true that community ties are particularly important in Buryatia. In a discussion of the report, online magazine Holod writes:

“The researcher, who was staying in Buryatia, concluded that, for local residents, the Russian army and the mobilised residents of the republic are not the same. For them, being against the war does not mean they must abandon their relatives or acquaintances who are in it against their will. An anti-war resident of Ulan Ude told the researcher that he himself was ready to go to the front ‘in solidarity with other victims of this unjust war’.”

The researchers also found declining tensions between the war's supporters and opponents who remained in Russia, while resentment towards those who left Russia has increased. It seems that the stay-behinds have been united by their shared experience of daily survival in a country at war.

The authors of the report divide Russians not into opponents and supporters of the war, but rather into opponents and non-opponents. In the spirit of Sergei Medvedev's reflections, the latter category includes not only Russians who openly support the war, but also those who seek to justify it or at least to avoid judging it. Significantly, the researchers conclude that the largest group, whose numbers are growing, is those who have an ambiguous attitude to the war. This helps point to another conclusion: in the face of the war, Russians are neither mobilised nor inspired by ideology. They are checking out. 

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This fact is a source of much griping within the so-called Z community. These are the most ardent supporters of the war, who want to fight not only Ukraine but also the West and if necessary the whole world. Ivan Filippov closely follows the mediasphere of this milieu, sharing his observations in the pages of the aforementioned Holod. Recently, he has noticed much fulmination among Z-bloggers about the attitude of Russian society.

Filippov cites an extensive post by military expert and Izborsky Club member Vladislav Shurigin, who writes that the main enemy is not the US, Nato or even the Ukrainian military, but rather "a dim-witted, deaf and indifferent official who cares about nothing except his own pocket, his own armchair and the wishes of his superior, on whom his wellbeing depends". Alongside this caricature of a time-serving official, there was another hate character: the fat middle-class Russian who, on holiday in Turkey, is keen to discuss special operations with his ilk but only after asking when there will finally be a ceasefire.

In pro-war circles, Shurigin's post provoked a spirited reaction and much lamentation about the misguided attitude of the Russian nation. On Holod, Filippov notes:

"Russians in combat and those helping them are beginning to realise that nothing is going to change. On the approach to three years of full-scale war, the public has not mobilised and is unlikely to do so. That is because it categorically does not want war. In pro-war circles, this is causing fury and understandable anxiety about the future [...]."

Russian fascists hoped for a mass popular wartime mobilisation that would see Russians drop everything including shopping and holidays in order to win the war. This seems to be a reflection of the similarly naïve post-invasion belief in the West that Russians would somehow rebel against the war and revive their country's democracy and rule of law.

Both of these vain projections date back to the experience of the Second World War. With great perseverance, Russia has transformed its so-called Great Patriotic War (of 1941-45) into a veritable state religion which brooks no criticism. One of the tenets of this creed is the belief that whatever happens, Russia will win. It will win because it has unlimited resources, including people who will be mobilised to the last man in the face of the enemy.

This Russian legend has become so pervasive that it now distorts reality. The 1940s war in no way resembles the current Russian campaign against Ukraine, and today's Russia is not the Stalinist USSR. Putin's Russia does not have unlimited resources, human or financial, and it will not be able to wage war indefinitely.

Yet it remains true that Ukraine can count on fewer resources still. It is Ukraine that is enduring occupation, destroyed cities and infrastructure, population displacement, and loss of life – both on the frontline and from the despicable shelling of civilians. As the country under attack, it is Ukraine that is bearing the costs of this war.

Updated on 8 July 2024