JRL NEWSWATCH: “Alternate Reality: How Russian Society Learned to Stop Worrying About the War” – Carnegie Endowment for International Peace/ Denis Volkov, Andrei Kolesnikov
“… While the public is tired of the ‘special military operation,’ there are different views on how the fighting should end. … [T]he average Russian believes it is their duty to endorse what the state deems to be moral and right. … Some data … [reveals] doubts …. If they could go back in time, 48 percent of them would still support the ‘special military operation,’ but 39 percent would not … correlat[ing] to the 41 percent … who believe the ‘special operation’ has done more harm than good (38 percent believe the opposite). … [M]any people back government initiatives while recognizing the harm they are doing … tell[ing] us something about … people’s decisionmaking …. Many Russians equate their country with the political regime …. Russian society still hasn’t been able to emancipate itself from the state. For most people, the interest of the state, especially on a symbolic level … is equated with the national interest. … While there is little trust for the authorities on everyday matters, the state is still sacralized as waging a ‘defensive’ and ‘liberational’ battle against an imaginary enemy ‘attack’ on the homeland. The state continues to create the prevailing public opinion through propaganda …. artificially generat[ing] demand for … false imperial grandeur. Russian society has yet to develop immunity against such moves by the state. … [T]he processes by which society has absorbed ideas and events over the past twenty months of the protracted ‘special military operation’ have tarnished people’s morals and distorted their sense of reality. …”