alt Hacker News> remind ordinary Russians
Ordinary Russians think the war's bad too. Only difference is you and I can say that without getting 15 years in a (very harsh) prison.
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Ordinary Russians think "yeah war sucks, I wish Ukraine surrenders so peace can be restored". I'm afraid only a tiny minority believes Russia needs to surrender.
I've seen the questionnaires from Moscow streets in the last few years on the topics of war. I've seen what different people write in social networks about it.
Maybe you can trick our naive western friends, but not me.
Being an indifferent somnambula is not the same as being against war.
Putin didn't take power in an overnight coup. Ordinary Russians didn't do anything about his growing power for what, 20 years or so? It was very much possible to act in the early stages, but it was easier not to, especially when hearing pleasing things about Russia becoming powerful.
No they don't.
Who do you think is killing Ukrainians?
It's not Putin himself, and it's not some kind of professional army.
Those are ordinary Russians who decided to join the occupational army, and who are launching drones and rockets at Ukraine every day.
Some do, but many don't. They aren't immune to propaganda.
For the time being.
Are they physically forced to vote for Putin? And how widespread is the electoral fraud?
I'm not totally sure about that.
Maybe Russians outside Russia.
Of course almost everyone thinks war is bad, but many seem to think it's justified - different thing.
There seem to be a wide support for the idea that Russia is threatened (economically and to an extent military) by the global West, and also that Ukraine is not entitled to be independent and also many of the official lies about the background.
Good lies have a nugget of truth in them, and this is the case also here.
Russia's economy is not growing (compared to EU, US), fertility rate is down, the revolution in Ukraine undermines the stability of the Russian regime, the attempted coup in Belarus was also a threat, NATO is arguably expanding - lately as a reaction to the war but nonetheless, EU is expanding into post-Soviet states both offering membership but also trade agreements which undercut Russia's ambition to be an economical hub in the region, etc.