Public opinion polls show that declared support for the war is little changed over two years, at around 70%, while those opposed are about 20%. “People are now denied even the most limited expression of criticism.” “It will not be an election, but basically a plebiscite on loyalty to Putin,” says Ms. The only anti-war candidate, Boris Nadezhdin, was blocked from participating by election authorities earlier this month, which means that even the constrained space for public debate that previously existed has shrunk drastically. Putin, much less give a limited stage to any critical opponent as past elections sometimes did. The current presidential elections will not offer even a semblance of competition to Mr. Perhaps if he’d been allowed to act unrestrained, he would have become the leader of a proper political party. People appreciated and admired him for his anti-corruption work, but he was not able to build anything lasting. “He was the only one pushing people toward overcoming their apathy and building a real organization. “Navalny was unique in many ways,” she says. Navalny’s death has demoralized many, not because he headed a powerful mass movement – he didn’t – but because even people who didn’t think of him as a potential president saw him as a brave and honest critic who represented hope for building a better country, says Masha Lipman, co-editor of the Russia Post, a journal of Russian affairs published by George Washington University. Navalny’s death made it worse he had been out of mind, and suddenly he was back in the most terrible way.” Now it’s more apathy, a desire to distance oneself, emigrate into one’s own inner life. “Then there were emotions of fear and anger, along with the hope that it would all end soon. “When the war suddenly started, there was shock and disbelief,” says Nadia Titova, who works as a journalist’s field assistant. Many people express themselves in a language of angst, doubt, fear, and uncertainty, but avoid talking about specifics. Outside of official publicity, there is little enthusiasm for the war effort, but neither does there seem to be much overt opposition. There is little public discussion of the most burning issue of the day – the war – and efforts by public opinion scientists to quantify peoples’ moods are fraught with ambiguity. Socially, the country appears in deep freeze. Putin’s Russia: Opponents of the Kremlin often meet terrible extralegal ends that go far beyond the limits of mere repression. The prison death last week of Alexei Navalny, perhaps President Vladimir Putin’s most inveterate critic, underscores a continuing reality that has many precedents in Mr. The signs of change most watched – and fretted over – include Russia’s ability to ramp up its war production to meet battlefield needs in a grueling war, and the expanding wave of repression of anyone who disparages Russia’s war effort or appears to sympathize with the enemy. Indeed, the few Western visitors to Moscow these days – such as former Fox News personality Tucker Carlson recently – invariably voice surprise at the outward dearth of hardship in a country so deep into a major war and the accompanying barrage of sanctions, the most severe in history.īut beneath the surface, a deep transition in the economy, the political system, social relations, and public mood is clearly underway. Most families will instead be marking the traditional Defender of the Fatherland Day, the Russian equivalent of Father’s Day, which falls the day before. The second anniversary of Russia’s war in Ukraine comes, ironically, on a long holiday weekend.īut there is unlikely to be any celebration of the anniversary within Russia, or even much discussion about it.
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