Carnegie Politika podcast host Alex Gabuev is joined by Denis Volkov, director of the Levada Center in Moscow, and Andrei Kolesnikov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, to discuss their new paper for Carnegie Endowment, "Alternate Reality: How Russian Society Learned to Stop Worrying About the War."
Since Russia launched its "special military operation" against Ukraine, Russian society has adapted to living amid conflict. Despite initial predictions that public outrage would topple the regime, the majority of Russians have consolidated around the Kremlin, viewing it as a defender against a perceived threat from the West.
How accurate are wartime opinion polls? How have the dynamics of support for the war in Russia changed during the past year? Which events have changed public perceptions in Russia over the last 18 months? What needs to happen in 2024 to bring about a change in these perceptions?
Alexander Gabuev. Welcome to Carnegie Politika podcast. My name is Alexander Gabuev, I'm director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center and the host. We are approaching the second anniversary of tragic full-blown invasion of Russia against Ukraine.
Throughout this time, a lot of observers and politicians have expected that the Russian people will not take this war so lightly - Ukraine is one of the most important Russia's neighbors, where many Russians have friends, relatives, family members, people they know personally. [It was expected that] this brutal onslaught will not go unnoticed and will produce some pushback or should produce some pushback. Russia has entered this war without much preparation of the public opinion. So many people right before the full-blown invasion never believed that it could happen.
Throughout this period the support that the Kremlin has extracted from the population, the ability of the Russian authorities to keep the population down and quiet was remarkable. One of the most eye-opening pieces of research I've read was published in September last year by two of my colleagues: Andrei Kolesnikov, who is Moscow-based senior fellow at Carnegie Endowment, and Denis Volkov, who is director of Levada Center, the most respected sociological company in Russia.
In the paper published by Carnegie, “My Country, Right or Wrong: Russian Public Opinion on Ukraine”(September 2022), they document how the population starts to adopt and accept the new reality.
Carnegie is releasing a new report that Andrei and Denis have produced together. It's called “Alternate Reality: How Russian Society Learned to Stop Worrying About the War”, (October 2023). Very strong Doctor Strangelove vibes here.
I’m very keen to discuss with both authors their findings. Andrei Kolesnikov, you're very welcome!
Andrei Kolesnikov. Thanks so much! Hello.
Gabuev. It's great to have you, Denis, as well!
Denis Volkov. Thank you! The pleasure is mine.
Gabuev. Andrei, you have been based in Moscow since the beginning of the war. Not that many researchers are still there. What's the mood like?
Kolesnikov. The impression from this mood coincides with the results of the sociological polls and focus groups. The overriding feeling is indifference. This is kind of a therapy for people because they can distract themselves from the reality of war and this kind of behavior allows them not to think a lot about the war and concentrate on their private life. I think that the Kremlin understands it, because it's better to have a quiet population than an irritated one. Maybe because of that, there are no signs of possible general or partial military mobilization.
The situation is contradictory, but I think that the Kremlin can express content with the situation and the majority of Russians also can express the same feelings. This is a kind of social contract between two sides.
Gabuev. Denis, I have a question on how reliable the sociological data that you can collect in Russia is now? I will tell you my personal experience.
Every time I see somebody from Russia coming to Istanbul, the Gulf, or Europe, they are extremely cautious even being outside of Russia. People turn off their phones and so on. That's probably because of interacting with me as a foreign agent and researcher who works for an organization that the Russian authorities deem foreign agent as well. Everything I hear from friends and family there is that people don't discuss these issues too much and are extremely cautious in making any statement or discussing that with colleagues or relatives.
How reliable is the data that you can collect as a sociologist when you ask about war? I know there is a whole section in your paper dedicated to that. Can you talk about the accuracy of data?
Volkov. Yes, of course. We think that our data is quite accurate because we ask not only questions on political issues, but on economic and respondent's mood and so forth. All these trends together make a comprehensive picture of what's going on.
One of the formal indicators to tell us that the data is OK is the response rate. It changed a little bit last year and since then it has moved back to normal. It's about 30 percent in our last survey, for example. It was about the same in 2021. It moved a little bit lower to 28 percent last year. Now it's back to normal.
Another important issue is to understand that no man is an island. The results of public opinion poll are not a mechanical sum of isolated individuals. We measured the dominant mood, dominant opinion and the force that presses individuals to comply with the dominant mood. It indicates how people behave in public, what will be their moves in public. We think it's accurate, especially because we complemented it with the results of focus groups and were observing the situation in the streets, not only in Moscow, but in other cities as well.
Gabuev. Thanks.
Andrei, I read your paper with Denis more than a year ago. It was published in September. My impression was, “Oh, they nailed it.” That really puts a real scientific basis and data figures under everything I observed, not being in Russia. All the circumstantial evidence available to me shows that people internalized the war and started to accept that.
That was before the major mobilization at the end of September. I think your paper described that less than, or around 20 percent of people are anti-war but also repressed and silent. There is a core on the opposite part of the pendulum of real “hardcore” war supporters, which is also around 20 percent. And the rest is a relatively passive majority that goes along with the government and accepts the narrative that the Kremlin offers to explain what's going on. You revisited the issue exactly a year after, so it's 18 months into the war. What has changed? What has stayed the same compared to your previous paper?
Kolesnikov. That's a very good question to assess the situation. I think some segments of this public opinion are stable, such as polarization in views and the stabilization of assessing or pursuing war as something routine. People are ready to pay the price for their own quietness and keep supporting this regime. If we dive into emotions and deep feelings of different people, we can see that they can support this regime to avoid any involvement, not to mention physical involvement in the trenches. The further routinization continues.
Some people do not approve of this war, but they justify it to themselves, to their friends, to their environment, and they're still trying to hide from reality. This is also a stable part of behavior, but some of them construct an artificial world around them, accepting explanations from the top, from television, from Putin's speeches, and from various officials.
They prefer to live in this artificial reality where their Country is attacked by the West and they must be partly involved in a long and existential war with the “Collective West”, which has a desire to “destroy Russia”. This is a bit new.
Gabuev. I think that this picture of 20 percent being antiwar, 20 percent “hardcore” supporters, and the remaining 60 percent in between is more or less stable.
What is the demographic and regional distribution? From your paper, it seems that people who tend not to support the actions of the Russian army in Ukraine are mostly on the younger side, an urban educated side. These are people in the large population centers. Is that a correct depiction of what's going on?
Volkov. Yes, it's more or less accurate. Of course, we need to understand that even in younger groups, people tend to support what's going on, though this support is not as hard as with older generations, where it's more intensive.
I would say that opposition to this war concentrates within the group that has been consistently oppositional towards the government, both before and after the war started. These individuals, who don't support Putin and disapprove of the government, also tend not to approve of what the Russian army is doing. I think this is the main group who is antiwar and anti-militaristic.
At the beginning, it seemed more evident that people in the biggest cities were more antiwar. But as the war drags on, it is not so obvious now. Moscow, the biggest city, is the city of civil servants, of those who benefit from the state. Now, Moscow is a polarized city with many who support and those who don't support and who was going out to protest and then were detained. This open protest was concentrated in the biggest cities, but the moods in general in the biggest cities are more diverse.
Gabuev. We see that these are exactly the groups that probably have means and ability to go outside of Russia and that immigrated either after the war has started or soon after the partial mobilization was called. So, probably, these are people that are less visible in the dataset that you assess. In which cities did you conduct the in-depth interviews and focus groups?
Volkov. Those were the cities where we were occasionally doing some groups, such as Saint Petersburg, Komi Republic, and some cities of Central Russia. I think about 5-6 cities throughout these 15 months or so, which are present in this survey. It's not only Moscow, not only the biggest cities, but also average towns.
The moods are the same, exactly as Andrei said, that the majority are not directly involved in this. And as they are not directly involved, they can go by and live more or less normal lives.
Gabuev. I found something very interesting, Andrei, in your paper where you describe what it means when people support peace talks. You often hear, “Oh, but actually, 50 percent of Russians or even more support peace talks with Ukraine.” That's also supported by the data you provide, showing that 50 percent of the people you've polled support peace talks.
However, there is a very important nuance that you discover in both polling and in the focus groups. Could you talk about how people are accepting not only the facts that there are going to be peace talks and that Ukrainians will agree to conditions imposed by the Kremlin, but also engaging in “give and take” diplomacy? This means some compromise and something that Russia should give away.
Kolesnikov. Generally, the behavior of the majority of the population is quite opportunistic. The peak of peaceful mood was during the partial mobilization a year ago. We then witnessed a certain stabilization of these figures, but they're still high due to war fatigue, which is becoming stronger on one hand. On the other hand, this is kind of a self-assessment of the majority of Russians: “We are peaceful people. We are against war and casualties. We are for peace. But the other side is not ready for peace.” It’s just like Putin explains the situation: “Yes, we want peace talks and, at the end of the story, peace itself. But we need compensation for our sacrifices, our war deals, etc.”
The main condition for supporting peace for these people is the preservation of the Ukrainian territories occupied by Putin. Otherwise, people generally are not ready to accept the idea of peace itself.
I think this mood could be prolonged and procrastinated for a long time. Events that can change the mood must be very significant and sensitive for most of the population to change their views on this question.
Gabuev. It’s clear, and I agree that no person, and probably no people, would want to call themselves aggressors. It's a tiny part in every society that leads an aggressive war that would say, “Oh, this war is totally unjustified.” As more and more information in a democratic process, like we saw with the perception of war in Iraq in the USA, changes the social mood, in Russia, this alternative source of information is not necessarily available to the majority, so it's obviously very easy to say that we lead a defensive war, and this is why it's justified.
But it's also interesting what you say about there being very few new facts or developments that can really make people wake up to the reality that “we are a nation at war.” One of these new facts last year was drone strikes against Moscow and a significant increase in Ukrainian attacks against Russian territory.
The argument at the time was that it's not only about disrupting Russian logistics or the supply of goods like fuel or real cargo that support the war machine, but it's also an attempt by Kiev to send a message to the Russians: 'Hey, the situation is not normal. You are at war. And the costs are rising.' That was an attempt to wake people up. Do you see that this message got any traction? Have people's perceptions changed over these attacks last year and this year?
Volkov. No. I think that the majority, at least in Moscow, didn't notice it very much. As we discussed it in focus groups with Muscovites, people were saying, “Well, nobody was killed, it wasn’t the next street to where I live. So why bother?” But what we see from the surveys, from our colleagues in the border regions, is that the involvement in direct conflict, direct war, hardens people, and they become more supportive of Putin and the Russian army because the war is coming to their homes, and at least it has an immediate effect.
While these events were limited, they didn't change the perception of the war that much. Several main events did impact the perception at the beginning of hostilities, of course. It consolidated public opinion behind Putin, as even before hostilities began, people were placing blame on the United States and the West.
The second important event was the introduction of sanctions, which brought economic turmoil and even panic. However, as the government was able to quell this panic, it didn't affect people as much, and by April and May, they had become accustomed to it.
The third major event was the partial mobilization, which was an even bigger shock than the beginning of the war itself. People felt it might concern them directly, but as it became partial and was soon over, we observed that by the end of last year, the moods were getting back to normal.
Gabuev. It's very interesting that you mentioned, Denis, that the partial mobilization at the end of September last year shows a huge spike in public concerns and the feeling that things are going in the wrong direction, causing panic. Surprisingly, the [former PMC Wagner Group leader] Prigozhin’s mutiny was not noticed at all. Do you have an explanation for why that wasn’t noticed?
Volkov. Well, Prigozhin became a very interesting figure by spring last year, especially when Bakhmut was taken. He entered the top five figures with the highest trust and approval ratings. He was important and fascinating because he was right in the middle of the fighting, reporting from there. People listened to his criticism of the Russian military, and so on.
But the mutiny itself, being very rapid, and the majority finding out about it afterward when Putin had already made his judgment—saying it was a “stab in the back,” not right, not good, and Prigozhin is a traitor—the majority felt this way, following Putin's lead. Another crucial move made by the government was the expropriation of Prigozhin's alternative media empire.
As soon as he was banned from this alternative access to the people, he was out of touch with them. We observed how quickly people forgot about him because he was not in the media anymore. In focus groups, we heard people saying, “Well, Prigozhin was a good guy.” He “was”, even before he was killed in a crash, he became a history because he didn't have this alternative access to ordinary people.
Gabuev. Very interesting. Andrei and Denis, reading your work, I'm not getting surprised. I think that it correlates with everything I see without working on data. And it supports everything I know about my country. But it makes me very depressed—many of us who opposed this war. Can you walk us through the building blocks of why? Why do people feel that way? Why do they not challenge the narrative that's provided by authorities? So many people know somebody in Ukraine who is directly affected.
Kolesnikov. You know, this is not simply anticipatory obedience, which is typical for this kind of regime—authoritarian regimes or half-totalitarian regimes like Putin's. This is about learned indifference. It's a way of behavior, a way to survive.
We are talking about a very hard period for any person in this society, whether they support the war or not. But the question is how to survive this period, how to find a proper exit from these dark times. People prefer to behave opportunistically, to adapt to the situation. This is normal; we know a lot of historical examples of this kind of behavior, especially in totalitarian or authoritarian regimes. It's better to be in the mainstream, better to be invisible, better to be silent, better not to be vocal. Or if you want to demonstrate your voice, you must support.
You must be part of society in terms of implementing your civil duty and supporting the authorities or in terms of morally approved, encouraged behavior. But, again, we're talking about the majority, and in this sense, the majority is a trendsetter in this society. Maybe because of that, people try to be in the mainstream.
When we're talking about people who are against this war, against Putin, their influence is limited by the very political possibility to change anything in this country. They can't go to the streets; it's impossible in this kind of regime—you could be arrested, you could be imprisoned. But we do not pay a lot of attention to, invisible for Westerners or somebody else, resistance. Sometimes mute resistance of millions of people in this country. They do not approve of Putin. We really think, if we can extrapolate figures of respondents, the level of disapproval to the population of Russia, we shall see that we are talking about really millions of people in this country.
Gabuev. If we try to make a prediction for the next year, I would see more of the same: hardening support for the war, further normalization, and internalization. The regime seems stable, and the situation on the battlefield is a stalemate that doesn't favor Ukraine and doesn’t disadvantage Russia to a large extent—except for the numbers, undisclosed numbers of body bags arriving, and money being paid for families to lose their loved ones or for their loved ones to return as cripples.
Not much is shifting, and probably next year we're going to see more of the same. What would it take to change this picture? Is there anything at all, Denis?
Volkov. Well, it is hard to say now. In the previous year, we were saying that it's more or less stable. I would also add why it is stable: because the Kremlin controls the narrative, mainly through control of Russian television. Television is solid, the Internet is fragmented and can't compete with television in this way. We should not underestimate how many resources the Kremlin is spending on preserving this situation.
For example, all these social benefits were indexed, and the pensions and the salaries of state workers were raised. To give you a better understanding of how much money the participants of this “special military operation” get: our average median income in Russia is about 500 dollars; in a poor region, it's about 350 dollars. The participant of the “special military operation” gets 2000 dollars per month, and that's how this war is maintained and why people stay calm and even support what's going on.
Especially the poorest parts of the population are feeling better, not people in the biggest cities and the middle class who are suffering but also have resources to adjust to the situation. So that's why it is so stable, and that's why I don't think it will change that much next year.
Gabuev. Money plays a role, and what you describe is that somebody who is fighting there in Ukraine gets four times the average, or nearly seven times the average income in a poorer region. That makes a difference, and the windfall translates into more support. In one of the next episodes, we probably should talk to some colleagues at Carnegie who work on the economy to walk us through the numbers.
I'm very grateful for your work, Andrei and Denis. It's really an honor to be your colleague and thank you, hang in there!
I really encourage everybody to read the report. The Russian version has also been published. It's a reading that's mandatory for anybody who follows this conflict because it helps you to arrive at a very sober, clear picture that's supported by data. Thank you so much, Andrei and Denis. Be well!
Kolesnikov. Thanks a lot.
Volkov. Thank you.