Russians tend to embrace Soviet-era thinking

Opposition to the war in Ukraine is unpopular among Muscovites

• The authorities prevented the Russians from protesting against the war in Ukraine.

  archival

• Arresting a protester against the war in Ukraine.

  archival

picture

“Have the dogs appeared?” asked former space engineer Larisa Solodovnikova, 75, as she stood among a small crowd queuing to hear Ilya Yashin, an opposition politician, make a final appeal at Moscow's Meshchansky Court.

The criminal trial is the most high-profile of dozens being conducted against the few Russians who dared defy the wartime censorship machine.

Yashin was accused of posting "fake news" on YouTube about the Russian army's actions in Bosh, a suburb north of Kiev, where many people were brutally killed in a short-lived assault.

Within 40 minutes, a specialized squad of police with sniffer dogs had arrived to clear the courtroom over a supposed bomb threat, manhandling the unresisting crowd, and Solodovnikova watching the frosty scene.

Yashin faces a nine-year prison sentence.

Moscow is different

The world order has shifted since President Vladimir Putin's war against Ukraine.

But if one were to visit the capital of Russia, they probably wouldn't notice it.

Moscow is, as ever, a challenge to the senses: a mixture of brutalist architecture and apparent consumerism;

It is new Soviet and high-tech;

It is Switzerland and North Korea.

A few buildings are decorated with war murals or "Z" flags, Putin's war trademark.

In the south of Moscow, where minibuses arrive from Crimea, the squares in front of the train stations and bus stations are filled with exhausted soldiers, some with missing arms or legs.

And fewer cars on the road, a reflection of the hundreds of thousands of Russians who have fled.

But overall, the visible changes are insignificant, supported by a degree of economic stability that comes from high oil and gas profits.

The government has largely succeeded in insulating the capital from the war.

Information is at the core of this isolation.

Having once tolerated the private media, the Kremlin has erected great walls around the truth since February, and some 260 publications have already been closed.

Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are now blocked;

None of them can be accessed except through private network proxies.

The laws prohibit defaming the Russian army (punishable with fines) or spreading “false news” (punishable with imprisonment).

And a list, updated in December, criminalizes any discussion of more than 60 sensitive topics, from the number of Russians killed in action to the country's mobilization campaign.

Anyone who wants an alternative view should seriously look into it.

It is hard to find a private internet that has not been banned by local digital authorities.

The Russian media simply propagate stories of the army "defending" the people of Donbass.

According to Lev Gudkov, who heads the Levada Center and is considered one of Russia's most trusted pollsters, only one in five Russians now consume news beyond state propaganda.

This number generally corresponds to those who are staunchly opposed to war.

But there is a darkening of the truth, and there are true believers in war and those who think it is a riot.

Gudkov says most Russians are in the middle, choosing to distance themselves and retreat into family life.

Double thinking

As in the Soviet era, people adopt doublethink.

Recent opinion polls, conducted by the Levada Center, reveal a shift in the general attitude, with a majority now supporting peace talks.

Few of the respondents feel any kind of responsibility for the war.

“People do not want war, but they submissively agree to it, because opposing it would cause serious internal dissonance with themselves, because they still strongly sympathize with the state,” Gudkov says.

This is an answer those watching from Ukraine will find infuriating.

Prominent Russian journalist Yuri Saprikin sympathizes with Ukraine's frustration.

He says that Russian society has never coalesced as Ukrainian society was able to.

Now Russian society finds itself collectively dispersed and depressed, dependent in part on the state for that depression.

"Totalitarianism makes people very vulnerable," Sabrykin said.

And when tanks and missiles are added to the mix, society never stands a chance.”

For her part, the lawyer and former journalist for the Vedomosti newspaper, Maria Esmont, who represents (Ilya) Yashin in the trial, says that the Kremlin has long worked to destroy horizontal ties, pursuing “treason, organizations, imprisonment, intimidation, creating divisions and buying loyalty. The authorities did everything to ensure that there was no self-organisation.”

In his final statement before the court on December 5, her client (Yashin) called on his supporters to resist, saying: “Defend each other.

There are more of us than it seems.

Whatever the truth of this assertion, Yashin's strong public stance against the war is, at the moment, a very marginal concern.

And the Russians protesting against it do so privately only.

The combination of repression and relative economic flexibility means that, in Russia, the artificial consensus is likely to persist for some time to come.

• Recent opinion polls, conducted by the Levada Center, revealed a shift in the general attitude, as the majority now supports peace talks.

• Moscow is, as ever, a challenge to the senses: a mixture of brutalist architecture and apparent consumerism;

It is new Soviet and high-tech;

It is Switzerland and North Korea.

• 260 publications have been closed since February in Russia.

Follow our latest local and sports news and the latest political and economic developments via Google news