Those who, like many Russians, appreciate western fast food still have plenty to choose from.

Although McDonald's has closed, it now wants to withdraw entirely from Russia because of the Ukraine war;

but Burger King and KFC keep frying.

A Moscow family man who was recently in Kazan, the capital of Tatarstan, reports happily that even McDonald's was open there.

"Burger and fries tasted the same as always," he says, in a small triumph of normality over the political turmoil.

Frederick Smith

Political correspondent for Russia and the CIS in Moscow.

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There are many such successes.

A drive through Moscow's suburbs and shopping centers reveals that although the German hardware store chain OBI has closed, French competitors from Leroy Merlin are continuing.

In the body care section, The Body Shop is closed, but Yves Rocher remains open.

Adidas stores are closed, but the company's sneakers can be bought in other stores.

Apple has also stopped direct sales in Russia, but iPhones are available in other stores.

The shelves in the supermarkets are well stocked, panic buying from the first days of the war is over.

Experts say the warehouses could run out in two or three months if supplies fail to materialize and financial sanctions and logistical problems kick in.

Companies like IKEA and Volkswagen, which have frozen their business in Russia, initially sent their employees on paid vacation.

All in all, a picture of normality emerges that most people are happy to hold on to.

The "events" in Ukraine

Bars and restaurants in Moscow are crowded, as they are every year in the spring days.

Young people party through the night.

On some buildings and cars you can see the "Z", the symbol of war.

But the letter's presence is not nearly as strong as state propaganda for the "special operation" would suggest.

At one of the chic markets selling everything from sushi to pizza, typical of Moscow's recent modernization, a woman wearing a white "Z" on a black T-shirt stands out as a major exception.

An elderly Muscovite, who keeps working because of his meager pension, thinks that people are silent on the subject of war or "special operations", they avoid it.

If you ask them directly about the war or cautiously about the "events" in Ukraine, many of them will answer in sentences that are familiar from television.

For example, two men, both 40 years old, who came with their children to the Victory Parade on May 9th.

"Nazism is raising its head again," they say, "we must finish the cause of our fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers."

Sociologists are arguing more than ever about the validity of Russian polls, now that authoritarianism is being replaced by totalitarianism, in which dissidents are persecuted as traitors to the country.

But apparently many Russians genuinely believe the leadership's justifications for war -- just as they believed, up until President Vladimir Putin's February 24 "special operations" address, that Western reports of Russian plans to attack Ukraine were "russophobic hysteria."

The Kremlin managed in a short time to establish the narrative of an imminent attack on the Donbass and Russia, which had to be forestalled to prevent worse.

When Putin's media shows pictures of the destruction from Ukraine, Ukrainian "Nazis" and Western power pullers are responsible for all the damage and deaths.

It's a simple, seductive logic: as in Soviet times, Russia stands for good, America for all evil.

For example, you can easily talk to the caretaker about the war, the horror, the insecurity, each under their own sign.

Except that she ends up sighing, "It's all up to America!"