Russians Again Making Plans for the Longer Term, VTsIOM Poll Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Nov. 25 – After Vladimir Putin launched his expanded invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the percentage of Russians who said they were making long-term plans for the future dropped from 64 percent to 49 percent; but now, having absorbed that shock, the share doing so has risen again to 57 percent, according to a new VTsIOM poll.
    Over the past year, the polling agency which is closely affiliated with the Kremlin, said that those who say they are avoiding making longer term plans because of instability in the country had fallen from 21 percent to seven percent, although the share saying they live only day to day went up from 19 percent to 25 percent (actualcomment.ru/rossiyane-vozvrashchayutsya-k-dolgosrochnomu-planirovaniyu-2411251243.html).
The survey also found that 67 percent say they are now able to achieve their plans while  58 percent say that such outcomes depend “above all” on themselves and that 54 percent say they now expect their children to have better lives than they do. What the survey did not determine is whether Russians have reduced their expectations about themselves or about these prospects.  
Thinking longer term and believing that what happens in their own lives depends on the first instance what they do means that Russians have factored in the war in Ukraine in terms of its impact on them, something the Kremlin no doubt welcomes, and are even thinking about a Russia after Putin departs the scene, something the powers that be almost certainly don’t.