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The Russian people and the Russian government are largely in agreement and the oligarchs are out of power. If you can bet on one thing it is that oligarchs like

The Russian people and the Russian government are largely in agreement and the oligarchs are out of power. If you can bet on one thing it is that oligarchs like international business and do not like wars and having their yachts seized. That was the Russia of the 90s. I've got family and friends in Russia, most of them highly educated and with access to international news and all. War support is pretty strong through all social strata. (also backed by independent pollsters like levada, if you want to look at data).

codedokode 5y ago
> also backed by independent pollsters like levada Do they publish how many of respondents refused to talk? I saw information that majority of people refuse to answer questions about war. So it might be that the results are based mostly on opinions of people who agree to talk.
- Barrin92 5y ago
  Levada does, yes. They compare response/refusal/coop rates now and before the war and find it to be largely unchanged. https://www.thechicagocouncil.org/sites/default/files/2022-04/Final%20Russia%20Brief%20V3.pdf https://www.thechicagocouncil.org/sites/default/files/2022-0...
  - gdy 5y ago
    But the composition might have changed. Now anti-Putin people are more likely to refuse to participate in a poll out of fear while pro-Putin people are mobilized by mass media and eager to voice their support.
- qwerty456127 5y ago
  > Do they publish how many of respondents refused to talk? I saw information that majority of people refuse to answer questions about war. I believe an ordinary person against the war yet unwilling to get jailed for this opinion won't just refuse to talk, they would say they totally support their government although they actually totally hate it and wish it to collapse ASAP and the top officials to die in torment. Imagine you traveled to China or DPRK and some weird local emerged to ask how do you like the policies of their "great leader"? Would you take the risk of being sincere? I bet most people would say "fantastic!" and hurry away.
- lotusmars 5y ago
  Whenever me or people I know were contacted by a person claiming to be a pollster, including Levada, we just hang up. Nobody risks a chance of being "tested" by FSB or "anti-extremist" operative. The risk is huge from being put on control to personal harrassment by unmarked men spray painting "Z" and "traitor" on your door. The only people who actually take a chance are those who say "we support special operation" anyway.
pain2022 5y ago
“Independent pollsters”, my ass. According to their polls, Navalny support was 0-1% while so many people was arrested during demonstrations in his support in Moscow that thousands were put into immigrant detention center instead of regular jails. Also, people are scared they will get fired from their government jobs or worse if they voice opposition.
- mk3 5y ago
  You do realize Moscow is a multimillion city so the 10k demonstration is nothing.
  - xtian 5y ago
    Also urban liberals aren’t representative of the country as a whole
    - Nerwesta 5y ago
      nailed it. That's a bias I'm surprised very few people are able to grasp in the Internets, the same urban liberals ( from any country really ) or higher class tend to favor Western social networks, or be simply pro-Western, thus completely biaising the " I'm [Insert your nationality here] .. blablabla " It's especially rampant on Global South or emerging countries, while the richer people can actually afford slacking on Reddit responding to a mostly Anglophone audience.
  - pain2022 5y ago
    You do realize only a fraction of demonstration was arrested, and that for every person who risked getting beaten up and arrested there are many of his friends and relatives who support his views
    - zo1 5y ago
      That's why we have polls and statistics, instead of relying on the "most vocal" and supposedly "most courageous" people that "brave" the streets to protest. I personally don't buy it.
LightG 5y ago
Can you do me/us a favour and explain why they support the war? Genuinely interested. For the record, I'm vehemently against, so I'd like to understand how on earth another conclusion can be arrived at. Thanks,
- fabrika 5y ago
  Very often they say things like this: “War is certainly bad and unfair, but we have to go all the way once we have started it”. Or, “the war is unfair, but I can't be against my own country”. There are no war supporters among people I know though, everyone has their own bubble.
  - lotusmars 5y ago
    This is the most widespread position. On the hardline side there are variations of "you want gay parades?", "Ukrainians hate Russians and are Nazis", "[blacks, but usually the n-word] are fighting for Ukranians", "NATO is trying to destroy us and we must protect ourselves".
- vbezhenar 5y ago
  1. Because they think that Ukrainian government are US puppets and their main task is to destabilize Russia and hopefully destroy it some day. 2. Because they think that Ukrainian government relies on nazis and supports nazis. I understand that west does not really care about nazis, but for Russians it's a particularly hard topic, because almost every family in Russia lost one or more men in WW2. 3. They think that Ukrainian population is brain washed to foster hate against Russia and Russians. It's dangerous to have such a country on your border. 4. They don't really think that most Ukrainians are separate nation. They consider them generally Russians which were separated by historical accidents. And they want to unite with them.
- coward-guy 5y ago
  Their beliefs based on the facts which are hard to dispute: 1) Right Sector - Ukrainian nationalist neo-nazi political party in Ukrainian parliamentary 2) Azov Detachment - neo-Nazi unit of the National Guard of Ukraine, who participated in wars in Donbass 3) Lots of streets are named after Stepan Bandera, for example Stepan Bandera Avenue in Kyiv, who was a leader of Ukrainian ultranationalists and cooperated with Nazi Germany in 1941 against USSR
gdy 5y ago
>War support is pretty strong through all social strata. (also backed by independent pollsters like levada) Well, when Levada's polls showed overwhelming support for the annexation among Crimeans (and even growing support from Crimean Tatars) everybody was telling that Russian polls are rigged by Russian government and Crimeans were afraid to voice their true opinions. Now you are ready to believe all Russian polls if they help you demonize ordinary Russians. A poll using so called 'differential privacy' approach gives about 55% support for the war [0] and that's something considering that all tv channels and lots of government-sponsored internet news sites are spewing government propaganda and all independent media are terminated and blocked on the internet. That's about as much as the share of Americans supporting the second Iraq war while having access to the free media. [1] Personally, I immediately decline to participate in polls despite being approached twice in the last week. Before the war I was happy to tell them that I don't trust Putin, the government, the parliament and everyone else. Among young or middle-aged educated Russians the support for the war is much lower. Among all my acquaintances only two supported the war when it started. [0] https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2022/04/06/do-russians-tell-the-truth-when-they-say-they-support-the-war-in-ukraine-evidence-from-a-list-experiment/ https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2022/04/06/do-russians-te... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opinion_in_the_United_States_on_the_invasion_of_Iraq https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opinion_in_the_United_S...
- pfortuny 5y ago
  “The respondents on the platform are not a perfect mirror image of Russian society, of course. They tend to be younger, more urban, and better educated (Table 1).” So mostly people who did not live the USSR…
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- Barrin92 5y ago
  >Now you are ready to believe all Russian polls if they help you demonize ordinary Russians. I think you read intent into my post that isn't there. I don't demonize Russians now, didn't demonize them in 2014 and I very much did believe polls in 2014 because if you had any idea about Russia or Crimea you knew that the annexation would be celebrated and rally support and an intense amount of national pride. 55% and comparisons to Iraq seem about right, but that war had authentic support for many years, had entire schools of foreign policy backing it, and hawks exist along the entire spectrum, from coastal intellectuals to flyover country. you actually did have the same discussions back then. "It's the deep state and MI-complex running everything, all Americans hate war!". Like, no lol. liberal twenty-something college students did, many others were on board.

codedokode 5y ago

> also backed by independent pollsters like levada Do they publish how many of respondents refused to talk? I saw information that majority of people refuse to answer questions about war. So it might be that the results are based mostly on opinions of people who agree to talk.

Barrin92 5y ago
Levada does, yes. They compare response/refusal/coop rates now and before the war and find it to be largely unchanged. https://www.thechicagocouncil.org/sites/default/files/2022-04/Final%20Russia%20Brief%20V3.pdf https://www.thechicagocouncil.org/sites/default/files/2022-0...
- gdy 5y ago
  But the composition might have changed. Now anti-Putin people are more likely to refuse to participate in a poll out of fear while pro-Putin people are mobilized by mass media and eager to voice their support.
qwerty456127 5y ago
> Do they publish how many of respondents refused to talk? I saw information that majority of people refuse to answer questions about war. I believe an ordinary person against the war yet unwilling to get jailed for this opinion won't just refuse to talk, they would say they totally support their government although they actually totally hate it and wish it to collapse ASAP and the top officials to die in torment. Imagine you traveled to China or DPRK and some weird local emerged to ask how do you like the policies of their "great leader"? Would you take the risk of being sincere? I bet most people would say "fantastic!" and hurry away.
lotusmars 5y ago
Whenever me or people I know were contacted by a person claiming to be a pollster, including Levada, we just hang up. Nobody risks a chance of being "tested" by FSB or "anti-extremist" operative. The risk is huge from being put on control to personal harrassment by unmarked men spray painting "Z" and "traitor" on your door. The only people who actually take a chance are those who say "we support special operation" anyway.

pain2022 5y ago

“Independent pollsters”, my ass. According to their polls, Navalny support was 0-1% while so many people was arrested during demonstrations in his support in Moscow that thousands were put into immigrant detention center instead of regular jails. Also, people are scared they will get fired from their government jobs or worse if they voice opposition.

mk3 5y ago
You do realize Moscow is a multimillion city so the 10k demonstration is nothing.
- xtian 5y ago
  Also urban liberals aren’t representative of the country as a whole
  - Nerwesta 5y ago
    nailed it. That's a bias I'm surprised very few people are able to grasp in the Internets, the same urban liberals ( from any country really ) or higher class tend to favor Western social networks, or be simply pro-Western, thus completely biaising the " I'm [Insert your nationality here] .. blablabla " It's especially rampant on Global South or emerging countries, while the richer people can actually afford slacking on Reddit responding to a mostly Anglophone audience.
- pain2022 5y ago
  You do realize only a fraction of demonstration was arrested, and that for every person who risked getting beaten up and arrested there are many of his friends and relatives who support his views
  - zo1 5y ago
    That's why we have polls and statistics, instead of relying on the "most vocal" and supposedly "most courageous" people that "brave" the streets to protest. I personally don't buy it.

LightG 5y ago

Can you do me/us a favour and explain why they support the war? Genuinely interested. For the record, I'm vehemently against, so I'd like to understand how on earth another conclusion can be arrived at. Thanks,

fabrika 5y ago
Very often they say things like this: “War is certainly bad and unfair, but we have to go all the way once we have started it”. Or, “the war is unfair, but I can't be against my own country”. There are no war supporters among people I know though, everyone has their own bubble.
- lotusmars 5y ago
  This is the most widespread position. On the hardline side there are variations of "you want gay parades?", "Ukrainians hate Russians and are Nazis", "[blacks, but usually the n-word] are fighting for Ukranians", "NATO is trying to destroy us and we must protect ourselves".
vbezhenar 5y ago
1. Because they think that Ukrainian government are US puppets and their main task is to destabilize Russia and hopefully destroy it some day. 2. Because they think that Ukrainian government relies on nazis and supports nazis. I understand that west does not really care about nazis, but for Russians it's a particularly hard topic, because almost every family in Russia lost one or more men in WW2. 3. They think that Ukrainian population is brain washed to foster hate against Russia and Russians. It's dangerous to have such a country on your border. 4. They don't really think that most Ukrainians are separate nation. They consider them generally Russians which were separated by historical accidents. And they want to unite with them.
coward-guy 5y ago
Their beliefs based on the facts which are hard to dispute: 1) Right Sector - Ukrainian nationalist neo-nazi political party in Ukrainian parliamentary 2) Azov Detachment - neo-Nazi unit of the National Guard of Ukraine, who participated in wars in Donbass 3) Lots of streets are named after Stepan Bandera, for example Stepan Bandera Avenue in Kyiv, who was a leader of Ukrainian ultranationalists and cooperated with Nazi Germany in 1941 against USSR

gdy 5y ago

>War support is pretty strong through all social strata. (also backed by independent pollsters like levada) Well, when Levada's polls showed overwhelming support for the annexation among Crimeans (and even growing support from Crimean Tatars) everybody was telling that Russian polls are rigged by Russian government and Crimeans were afraid to voice their true opinions. Now you are ready to believe all Russian polls if they help you demonize ordinary Russians. A poll using so called 'differential privacy' approach gives about 55% support for the war [0] and that's something considering that all tv channels and lots of government-sponsored internet news sites are spewing government propaganda and all independent media are terminated and blocked on the internet. That's about as much as the share of Americans supporting the second Iraq war while having access to the free media. [1] Personally, I immediately decline to participate in polls despite being approached twice in the last week. Before the war I was happy to tell them that I don't trust Putin, the government, the parliament and everyone else. Among young or middle-aged educated Russians the support for the war is much lower. Among all my acquaintances only two supported the war when it started. [0] https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2022/04/06/do-russians-tell-the-truth-when-they-say-they-support-the-war-in-ukraine-evidence-from-a-list-experiment/ https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2022/04/06/do-russians-te... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opinion_in_the_United_States_on_the_invasion_of_Iraq https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opinion_in_the_United_S...

pfortuny 5y ago
“The respondents on the platform are not a perfect mirror image of Russian society, of course. They tend to be younger, more urban, and better educated (Table 1).” So mostly people who did not live the USSR…
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
Barrin92 5y ago
>Now you are ready to believe all Russian polls if they help you demonize ordinary Russians. I think you read intent into my post that isn't there. I don't demonize Russians now, didn't demonize them in 2014 and I very much did believe polls in 2014 because if you had any idea about Russia or Crimea you knew that the annexation would be celebrated and rally support and an intense amount of national pride. 55% and comparisons to Iraq seem about right, but that war had authentic support for many years, had entire schools of foreign policy backing it, and hawks exist along the entire spectrum, from coastal intellectuals to flyover country. you actually did have the same discussions back then. "It's the deep state and MI-complex running everything, all Americans hate war!". Like, no lol. liberal twenty-something college students did, many others were on board.