“Give us peace - that’s all!”

Editorial “Layout”, Rita Loginova January 08, 2024 |

Russians believe that Vladimir Putin should end the war that is boring them in 2024

By the end of 2023, the share of Russians supporting the withdrawal of troops from Ukraine “without achieving the goals” of the war exceeded for the first time the percentage of opponents of such a decision. Citizens consider the war to be the most important and negative circumstance in their lives and want it to end as quickly as possible. This conclusion was reached not only by independent sociologists working for the “Chronicles” and “Laboratory of Public Sociology” projects, but also by people involved in measuring public opinion for the Kremlin.

The lack of mass support for military action is also observed by other researchers - from z-bloggers to clinical psychologists. They all note that Russians are not ready to protest to end the war, but they expect Vladimir Putin to end it. On the eve of the March presidential elections, Kremlin political strategists seem to be trying to meet this demand.

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“The desire to end the war is now at its peak”

“Perhaps there will be a coup by far-right dissenters”; “The fear will come [after the war - “Layout”] that Ukraine will come to us - like Napoleon before Moscow”; “It will get worse - because the sanctions are working harder and harder”; “If the war ends next year, then economic recovery will begin in two years”; “Give us peace - that’s all!” These are not statements from opposition politicians or journalists writing about the war, but quotes from focus group participants far removed from the media world. They were conducted this fall by researchers from Chronicles, the Laboratory of Public Sociology, and ExtremeScan in four Russian cities.

“We looked at how people express their attitude towards the war in a live conversation with each other. Already in December, the data from our interviews and focus groups was supplemented with new data from our volunteer ethnographers. They came to different regions, villages and cities, including front-line ones. We lived there for several weeks, integrated into the local community and tried to understand how people experience wartime in Russia. Conclusion: the desire to end the war as soon as possible is now at its peak since its beginning. And the share of people who support escalation is falling,” Laboratory researcher and sociologist Oleg Zhuravlev tells Vorstka. According to him, this desire is growing stronger despite the fact that “people have gotten used to the war, and it lives with them.”

Zhuravlev has something to compare with. “At the very beginning of the war, we saw figures from mass polls about the unconditional support of the Northern Military District. And we started doing what we usually do - conducting qualitative research to understand what is behind these numbers,” he explained. In the spring of 2022, sociologists collaborating with the Laboratory, according to the organization’s own data, conducted about two hundred in-depth interviews “with people of different views,” and in the fall and winter of last year, another hundred interviews with loyalists and supporters of the war.

Judging by the focus group reports that Vorstka reviewed, the reasons for war fatigue among Russians are mainly material. According to their observations, the country's economic situation is deteriorating, and inflation is accelerating. “Prices are rising and real income is collapsing. And you can no longer afford a lot of things, sometimes even minimally important ones,” one of the respondents expressed a typical assessment.

Another noted that “due to the increase in prices, wages do not seem to have changed, but it feels as if they have changed.” In addition, respondents believe that “sanctions are working and getting stronger,” but, on the contrary, they are not seeing success in import substitution. But the most important thing is that while the war is going on, they do not see any future. A common answer to the question about plans for the future sounds something like this: “Plans depend on the war, so I don’t plan too far.”

These are not isolated opinions and figures. According to sociologists from the Chronicles project, in October 2023, the proportion of Russians who want the end of the war without achieving its goals for the first time exceeded the number of supporters of its continuation : 40% of respondents versus 33%. “The share of those who would not support the withdrawal of troops is consistently falling. In February 2023 there were 47% of them, in July - already 39%,” the Chronicle notes.

At the same time, 44% of respondents report a deterioration in their financial situation, and more than half of Russians (52%), according to Chronicles, have experienced anxiety attacks. There are only 12% of consistent “war hawks” among the respondents - these are people who oppose the withdrawal of troops “without achieving the goals of the Northern Military District,” and also express support for the war and consider it right to give priority to spending budget funds on the army. The Chronicle conducted this telephone survey Oct. 17-22, 2023. The final sample included 1,199 Russians, distributed according to the socio-demographic and geographical sample according to Rosstat data.

The dynamics of attitudes towards the war, which are noted by the Chronicle and the Laboratory of Public Sociology, are combined with the results of sociological research carried out in the interests of the presidential administration, which also show a decline in support for the war among citizens and an increase in their desire for peace. “Support for the SVO is more than 60%, while less than 50% of those surveyed are in favor of its continuation, and more than 30% are in favor of moving to peaceful negotiations,” says a source from “Vestka” in one of the organizations controlled by the AP that work with public opinion.

He estimated the “hawkish core” at “about 15%.” Indirectly, the figures from a December survey by Russian Field indicate that support for the war in Russia is even more marginal. To an open question (the respondent does not choose an answer from those proposed, but names his own) about wishes for Russians for 2024, 50% of respondents answered that they wished peace, a peaceful sky and “the end of the Northern Military District.” And only 6% wished “victory” to their fellow citizens.

The source claims that the trend is “known to the pharmacy and measures are being taken.” If you look at the behavior of Vladimir Putin, these measures are hard to miss.

“They are against the New Year’s mood”

The Russian president, indeed, in public tries not to focus directly on military operations, as was the case before. Even on December 14, during the “Results of the Year” - a combined annual “Direct Line” and press conference, Putin spoke about events at the front only in connection with the fate of the mobilized. The President said that they are “fighting well,” and among them there are 14 Heroes of Russia.

But even such a mention aroused indignation among the “target audience” - the relatives of the mobilized: they did not hear from Putin the decisions they expected about the return of the soldiers home. Otherwise, during the “Results of the Year”, the head of state mentioned Ukraine only in connection with the “national hero Bandera” and confrontation with the West. In recent months, Putin has made only two significant public appearances, the main topic of which was the fighting in Ukraine.

The first is his official statement about his presidential nomination, which was asked by “Hero of Donbass” Artem Zhoga to Putin on December 8 after the ceremony of awarding new Heroes of Russia. Both participants in the dialogue spoke not about victory in the war, but about “a time” when Putin “is needed by new territories” for their integration into peaceful life. The second time was at an extended meeting of the board of the Russian Ministry of Defense, but even there Putin spoke no longer about the war itself, but about “geopolitics.” Even during events directly related to the military, the president did not always address the Ukrainian topic. For example, in mid-December in Severodvinsk, he participated in the ceremonial raising of flags on the new nuclear submarines of the Northern Fleet. And he spoke publicly only about strengthening the Russian submarine fleet, and not about what was happening in Ukraine.

Apparently, instructions not to mention her were sent to the Administration and regional heads. Immediately after the end of the event, they began posting videos on their Telegram channels telling them how much important they had learned from the “Results of the Year”. But even the militarized heads of Primorye Oleg Kozhemyako and the Kurgan region Vadim Shumkov said nothing about the fighting in Ukraine following Putin’s speech.

Russian television propagandists have also become “calmer,” their researcher, journalist Maria Borzunova, tells Vorstka. According to her, “the ‘not a step back’ mood on TV has not gone away,” but has become much more confident and calm than a year ago. This, according to Borzunova, was facilitated by events at the front, the unsuccessful Ukrainian counteroffensive, as well as the emergence of other conflicts in the world in which Ukraine’s allies were involved. First of all, we are talking about terrorist attacks in Israel and the response operation of the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip.

“The general mood is the confidence that now “we will put the pressure on” and will definitely win. Nobody talks about any peace negotiations on the screen. On the contrary, the same Margarita Simonyan talks about the Russian city of Odessa,” notes Borzunova.

She adds that by the end of the second year, the war had ceased to be the only topic not only for Western, but also for Russian media: “Other processes are appearing that are to one degree or another related to the war, but this is not the war itself. In this sense, it will be interesting to look at the entertainment broadcast: last year the war penetrated even into it, there were indirect calls to sign up as a volunteer for the front. I wonder if they will return to their normal state.”

Z-bloggers complain especially strongly about the detachment of citizens from the war. That is, representatives of those same 12% of citizens who support war until victory , which most often means at least the capture of Odessa, Kharkov and Kiev. “They are against what is called a New Year’s mood; from their point of view, it should not exist. And the whole country should work only for the victory holiday,” says Ivan Filippov, a writer who studies the work of Russian “hawkish” bloggers and the author of the telegram channel “All Quiet on the ZzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZEDMONEDNYMONAYMONEDNOCHYVEDNOKhFROVdnom [the Western Front] channel” writer Ivan Filippov. According to him, it is from the posts of these bloggers that “it is especially clear how tired the Russians are of the war.”

“From the very beginning they complain that there is no money, no support, few volunteers. Lately, they have been downright insulted because of this and point out that the Russian people have let them down - they don’t sacrifice, don’t die, don’t go to the front. Every time they understand that support is marginal at best, that the “heroes of the special operation” are actually beaten, humiliated in their homeland, not allowed into hotels, not allowed into bars, restaurants - they perceive this very painfully, explains Filippov. “It’s not like it’s a general phenomenon, but they write about it as if it happens all the time.”

According to him, the rhetoric of the z-bloggers themselves has also changed: “Strategic texts have almost disappeared. They write less and less about plans and goals of the war. Because they realize that they don’t have the strength to do anything more than advance a few hundred meters. And there is no new mobilization, and it seems there will not be. Is it possible to see in this the authors’ own fatigue from the war? If you want, yes, but I’m not ready to say so.”

By the end of the year 2023, the war in Ukraine had clearly ceased to be a central topic for Russian Internet users. According to the Wordstat Yandex service, for the period from November 24 to December 24, Russian users in one form or another searched for news about the NWO about 8.3 million times, and about the war in Ukraine - a little less than 1.8 million times. At the same time, the service recorded more than 14 million requests for the word “Ukraine.” Russians were also little interested in politicians. There were 8.5 million searches for the word “Putin”, and 5.8 million for the word “elections”. For comparison, the main Russian series “The Boy’s Word” was searched by Russians 92 million times, and the search engine responded to the request for “price” more than 100 million times.

The weak interest of the audience concerns not only government officials. For example, Ekaterina Duntsova, who tried to run for president, was searched for just under half a million times at the request of “Duntsova.” She yielded to the request “naked party,” by which users were looking for information about the scandalous party with the stars, organized in December by blogger Nastya Ivleeva.

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“Powerlessness, apathy, reluctance to do something ourselves”

Polina Grundmane, the creator of the psychological assistance project Without Prejudice , cites the attitude towards presidential candidate Ekaterina Duntsova as an example to describe the emotional state of the opposition-minded part of Russian society.

“People who turn to us for psychological support are now in such a state that their maximum is to join some group, but only a strong one,” Grundmane noted in a conversation with “Vestka”. “For example, presidential candidate Duntsova was hated by many of those who are in our support chats because she is weak in their eyes. They really need a strong hand. It turns out that the opposition-minded audience is essentially no different from other groups to which it seems to oppose.”

Without Prejudice supports Russian-speaking people in need of personal or group therapy due to the war in Ukraine. Over the 21 months of work, the project psychologists conducted 4,415 hours of consultations, 1,300 people turned to them for individual crisis help, all with signs of depression, and more than 2 thousand people turned to them for group psychotherapy.

The project positions itself as anti-war, so Russians who are skeptical of the Russian government and do not support the war turn to it, but recently, according to Polina Grundmane, they have completely fallen into apathy. At the same time, the majority of those with whom the project specialists work practically did not participate in political life before the war, did not go to protest rallies, and “lived their own lives.”

After the start of the war, the main peak of appeals occurred during mobilization. “People mostly asked whether they should leave, how to make a decision and weigh the risks, how to understand whether to flee now or calm down. After mobilization, people became apathetic,” Grundmane describes the emotional fluctuations of the first year of the war.

In the second year, the peak of requests fell on Prigozhin’s rebellion, although before it there was a large decline in requests.

“During the riot there were fewer personal crisis calls, but there was a surge in group activity. We have several dozen chats in all groups that have taken place since the beginning of the project; we never delete them, so that people always have the opportunity to return or at least ask for help,” explains Grundmane. “These chats “woke up” when the rebellion began, and while the rebellion was going on, people were preparing to do something and take action. They were not afraid of the rebellion, like, say, mobilization; no one asked for help to reduce the level of personal anxiety. The mutiny was treated as an opportunity to coordinate with supporters. But now we can again talk about a state of powerlessness , apathy, reluctance to do something ourselves.”

The phrase “Victory for Ukraine! Freedom for Russia!”, which was repeatedly heard by people who addressed Without Prejudice, can be deciphered as “We want Ukraine to win and liberate us with its own hands,” says the creator of the project.

“This, unfortunately, is a shifting of responsibility. Now it has become clear to them that Ukraine’s counter-offensive has not been successful, and everything around them says: “Ukraine failed to win. You will have to try to do something yourself.” And this doesn’t make people very happy; they don’t want to do anything themselves,” states Grundmane. “They are in such a state of powerlessness that they themselves are not ready for anything, they even began to volunteer less.”

In 2022, volunteering and helping refugees was a fairly popular strategy for regaining agency, says Grundmane. Among the project participants, about 7–8% said that this is how they cope with powerlessness. “People volunteered to solve their personal problems with guilt, shame and responsibility. In the second year, everyone just wants to survive on their own,” says Vorstka’s interlocutor. “Now, according to our surveys, approximately 2% are involved in volunteering.”

“Only bread riots can change the situation. But they are not expected"

War weariness and a clear desire to be away from it unexpectedly work to the benefit of the authorities more than to their detriment. According to a source from Vestka, familiar with sociological data collected in December for the Kremlin, 80% of Russians exclude the possibility of participating in protests, and only 10% allow this for themselves. “There is a difference regarding loyalty to Putin: if we take the Internet audience, then 65% declare trust in him. The figures from classical surveys, depending on the region, are 10–15% higher,” he told Vorstka.

The “second politician of the country,” according to him, is not one of the military men or even Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, but Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, who diligently avoids direct statements on the “Ukrainian issue.” “His support rating is 52% with 19% negative ratings,” added Vverstka’s interlocutor.

Similar figures are produced by sociological companies officially operating in Russia. For example, according to VTsIOM data as of December 17, Putin enjoyed the trust of 79.7% of respondents, with 62% for Mishustin and 40% for Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev. Shoigu is not in the VTsIOM ranking at all. The Levada Center’s December figures are even more “convincing”: 83% of respondents said they approved of Putin’s activities, while 14% thought the opposite; for Mishustin, 69% to 22%, respectively.

How “non-military” these figures can be understood in comparison with Ukraine. There, at the December two-hour press conference of Vladimir Zelensky, almost all questions were related either to military operations or to their support. And in early December, according to Ukrainian sociologists from the Rating agency, Zelensky became the second most trusted politician in the country with a rating of 72%. And the most popular politician in Ukraine was not one of the civilian ministers, but the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhny (82%).

Such high ratings of the Russian president and his prime minister who started the war do not at all mean a lack of dissatisfaction with the fighting . “It’s just that the moral condemnation of war in society, although strong, has not yet turned into an anti-war political position. A possible exception is the relatives of the mobilized who are actively protesting - this is a new movement. Let’s see if it can influence public sentiment and politics,” sociologist Zhuravlev tells Vorstka.

According to him, in focus groups the division of these two areas looks something like this: interviewees are ready to talk about individual problems caused by the war - inflation, or, for example, “the death of our guys.” “But when our volunteer asks: “So maybe we shouldn’t have started?” - They answer him that there is no need, they say, there is liberal propaganda here. They repeat the propaganda thesis about the inevitability of war and that Russia is defending itself from the West. People don't blame Putin and the Kremlin for the war. And Putin himself repeats that war is not Russia’s choice, but the West’s,” explains Zhuravlev.

Judging by reports from focus groups at the Laboratory of Public Sociology, Russians pin their hopes on ending the conflict with Putin. “They don’t change horses at the crossing. Change the president during the SVO? Forgive me, but man is still holding the situation until we are bombed,” said, for example, one of the respondents. Another argued that “whoever started the mess must clear it up to the end,” and only then the Russians “will all give their verdict en masse.”

They see no alternatives to Putin at the head of state, and they do not consider the March elections to be any important event and for the most part are either ready to vote for Putin or do not plan to participate in the vote at all. “ If there is only Putin there, then is there any point in going? “- asked one of the respondents. For those surveyed, the scenario of Putin’s disappearance from leading roles looks like something extreme and is associated, for example, with the “death of Putin.”

A high-ranking source of “Vestka”, close to the presidential administration, says that they are convinced: “bread riots, which are not expected, can change the situation.”

“Russians are champions of fear of the future and fear of change. Try to change the class teacher or director at school - most likely, you will run into opposition: it’s better to let this unsightly one, otherwise it’s not clear who will come instead. What can we say about the level of the president? Moreover, experience tells us that changes in Russia occur when it is completely unbearable, and in the form of a destructive storm. And this fear is now common among both management and society,” he asserts.

Professor, head of the Shaninka “Political Philosophy” program Grigory Yudin believes that this attitude of Russians towards the war corresponds to reality.

“Society comes out to political protest not when a certain cup of patience is full, but when an opportunity arises for this. Now it doesn’t exist: any person who adequately assesses the situation in Russia will say that there is no visible alternative to Putin. Therefore, they expect him to solve the main problem, that is, to end the war, despite the fact that he started it,” he explains.

Change in this situation is possible only when citizens see “that they can live somehow differently,” says Yudin. “When will an alternative appear? This is a difficult question to answer. But it is obvious to me: the potential for political activity in Russian society is very great. And as soon as the slightest opportunity appears, activity immediately begins around it. A serious possibility of change may arise, for example, as a result of the internal collapse of the power system.
Or as a result of increasing pressure to such an extent that there will be interest within the system for an alternative proposal. The problem is not only that there is no such pressure now, but also that no one has yet formulated any alternative proposal,” he concluded.

Co-founder of the Chronicles project Alexey Minyailo considers it a “positive find” that there is “almost no active support for the war in Russian society.” “This means that it will be more difficult for Putin to extract resources from society for her. People don’t believe that this is “their war,” so more people will evade taxes and steal from military purchases . Few people want to join the army themselves, so you have to pay a lot of money to sign a contract. And the quality of human capital [in war - “Layout”] is greatly declining. Against the backdrop of all the news about the war, this is good news,” he is sure.

Sociologist Zhuravlev believes that the presidential administration is now “at a fork in the road.” “The Kremlin takes into account the mood of Russians. And the population wants an end to the war more than ever. And Putin better look not like a militarized candidate who started a war, but like a candidate for peace. At the same time, the foreign policy situation is in no way conducive to ending the conflict, but on the contrary speaks of an increased likelihood of success for the Russian authorities. It’s interesting how the Kremlin will balance this situation,” he says.

However, in the Kremlin, apparently, the problem will be solved by moving the war to the periphery of the election campaign. According to two Vorstka sources close to the State Duma and the presidential administration, the “war theme” will not be actively used during the campaign. “It is planned to connect Ukraine with the themes of restoring new territories and establishing peaceful life there. Unless, of course, some sudden surprises happen at the front,” says one of them.

Among the presidential candidates there were no clearly hawkish or clearly anti-war candidates. The former head of the DPR Ministry of Defense, Igor Strelkov , who was vying for the first role, as well as the journalist Ekaterina Duntsova , who was vying for the second, were unable to obtain registration for the elections by the Central Election Commission.

“War fatigue and disbelief in its prospects are a problem for Putin, because more and more people, including apolitical ones, are “sick” of this. If this feeling of hopelessness worsens or, for example, serious military defeats appear, a surge in protest voting will be possible,” believes political scientist Abbas Gallyamov. Therefore, in his opinion, Putin’s headquarters “needs to make war just one of the topics” and focus “on peaceful construction in the life of a large country.”

“It is very important for him to indicate the prospect that this will end soon. The best way is through military successes. If they are not there, then hint at the possibility of quick negotiations and the enemy’s fatigue,” says Gallyamov. “They need the atmosphere of the approaching end of the war.” For example, through the return of those mobilized who are satisfied, happy and have earned a lot of money.”

Illustrations: Rita Cherepanova

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