Paul Goble
Staunton, Dec. 6 – Since February, the Kremlin has ordered special confidential telephone polls of 900 people each week about whether Moscow should have launched the war in the first place, whether it is “going according to plan,” and “whether it should be continued,” Farida Rustamova and Maksim Tovkaylo of The Moscow Times report.
The two have just gained access to some of these findings and among the most interesting they report is that these polls show that ever more Russians think Moscow should never have begun the war but that ever more believe that the country must continue the war and stay the course (themoscowtimes.com/2022/12/06/what-secret-russian-state-polling-tells-us-about-support-for-the-war-a79596).
The share of Russians saying that “Putin did the right thing by starting the conflict” is now ten percentage points less than it was six months ago, 60 percent as of mid-November compared to 50 percent earlier, with as one would expect young people becoming more critical while older ones remained more supportive.
But despite that trend, two out of every three Russians as of November 17 “supported continuing the fight.” Only 18 percent want Moscow to end the war, “the lowest number in six months, Rusamova and Tovkaylo say. This pattern holds, they say, “among both younger and older respondents.”
Russian political scientist Yekaterina Schulmann suggests that “people are taking a ‘we shouldn’t have started it but we must go on’ attitude because they realize Russia is losing.” Because Russians feel that, they also feel that “the military operation must not end now – ‘we can’t leave when we’re losing,’” reflecting fears about “the consequences of military defeat.”
She adds: “these polls reflect a Russian society inert and frightened, a country with a broken back … This is not bad news for the authoritarian political model since you can do anything with citizens like this – everything except mobilize” as the authorities are finding out now.
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