“Russians tend to say Ukrainians and Russians are one people because (1) they generally have had little contact with Ukraine and (2) this is what their president says and very similar to the Soviet line,” Snyder said. Even before his speech on Monday, Putin had been pushing the view that the two peoples are one, particularly in a tendentious essay last summer. “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. Most Russians also do not expect a Ukrainian attack on their country -- only 31% of Russians said that was likely.
- A prominent war expert has warned the US is on the verge of diminishing its support for or even withdrawing from NATO - and this could have catastrophic consequences for Europe.
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- ” — showed that there is little enthusiasm for a “real,” large-scale war among members of Russia’s modern, urban society (the country’s military operations in Syria and eastern Ukraine in recent years were not seen as real wars).
- 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.
- Volkov says these polls are conducted face-to-face, and people are assured of anonymity.
Probably yes, if more people had stood up for their freedom and challenged state TV propaganda about trumped up threats from the West and Ukraine. A bus service has started up connecting the city to the local cemetery where growing numbers of soldiers killed in Ukraine are being buried. In Pskov, near the Estonian and Latvian borders, the atmosphere is gloomy and everyone pretends the war has nothing to do with them, I am told. One local family visiting St Petersburg were shocked to find nothing had changed while their own lives had been turned upside down. But local doctors are leaving their jobs in droves, unable to cope with the numbers of war-wounded being brought for treatment in local hospitals. International sanctions have not brought Russia to the brink of 1990s-style economic collapse.
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One Ukrainian observer said Russian soldiers had advanced along the two main streets into Avdiivka from the west and south. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) think-tank said it had confirmed Russian advances to the south and south-west of the settlement. https://euronewstop.co.uk/how-did-boris-johnson-travel-to-ukraine.html to the regions have long been made by Ukrainian nationalists. He signed a decree on Wednesday calling for the preservation of Ukrainian identity in the “historically inhabited lands” of Krasnodar, Belgorod, Bryansk, Voronezh, Kursk and Rostov, which border Ukraine to the north and east. Volodymyr Zelensky has claimed six Russian regions were “historically inhabited by Ukrainians”.
"We need independent media to stop the war and then try and improve life in Russia at least to a degree." It is firmly controlled by the Kremlin and pumps out relentless war propaganda. Ukrainians are said to shell their own cities, and Russian troops are presented as liberators.
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Russian forces have advanced near the heavily-contested eastern town of Avdiivka, currently held by Ukraine, according to reports. Warnings about the "shrinking size" of the army have also been sounded by former military chief General Lord Dannatt, who told The Times numbers had reduced from 102,000 in 2006 to 74,000 today and were still "falling fast". The MP for Bournemouth East said that following decades of post-Cold War peace, there was a growing sense authoritarian states could "exploit our timidity, perhaps our reluctance to really put fires out" - pointing to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. "As the chairman of the NATO military committee warned just last week, and as the Swedish government has done...taking preparatory steps to enable placing our societies on a war footing when needed are now not merely desirable but essential." General Sir Patrick Sanders, the outgoing Chief of the General Staff (CGS), said increasing army numbers in preparation for a potential conflict would need to be a "whole-of-nation undertaking". British citizens should be "trained and equipped" to fight in a potential war with Russia - as Moscow plans on "defeating our system and way of life", the head of the British Army has said.
For example, Novaya Gazeta blurred out the anti-war poster held up by a protester who interrupted a live news bulletin on Russian state TV. As a result, some of the few remaining independent media in Russia have started to censor themselves. Online, most independent news websites are blocked or restricted, and so are Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. The fact that the majority of Russians tune in to TV news means they are inclined to at least hear the Kremlin's message - and possibly believe it.
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… The media gives only authorized information, and the [country at large] 'absorbs’ losses,” she explained. And when it comes to Russian war casualties, Koneva said the losses have been successfully covered up by the country’s strict censorship measures. Koneva said that in June 2023, respondents were asked to send "virtual telegrams to ordinary Ukrainian citizens." Some 38% of respondents reported the war “has reduced their options or ruined their plans.” Among them, 14% of respondents reported a job loss, 36% a decrease in income and 56% reported spending more savings on food.
- But what kind of guarantees they would give independent Ukraine is not yet clear.
- Anchors on the state television Channel One, for example, have said that Ukraine is forcing its own citizens in the Donbas to flee.
- He told me that, when researchers added the option “I don’t want to answer this question,” twelve per cent of those surveyed opted for this answer—a number that he presumed, given the atmosphere, was made up nearly entirely of those who opposed the war.