Lawfare Daily: What Do the Russians Actually Think About the War?

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“. And at the same time, they want peace, they want to stop the war also the majority, right? How is this possible?”

While if the war keeps escalating, right? It's because fundamentally, the war is in disturbance. It's the law fair podcast. I'm Anastasia Lopatina, Ukraine Fellow at law fair, with Maria Sningovaya, a senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The big question is what the response will be if Russia would start losing territories? Probably will happen against the backdrop of the economic crisis.

It's a serious economic crisis where the preference would be just, you know, let it be within the group, right? This is when they are probably, they will really dramatically decline for the war, in general, for the idea of this special melt preparation. Maria and I said down to discuss how Ukrainian attacks on Russian energy sites are changing Russian attitudes towards the war, and what Russian polling can tell us about the war's future. Maria, you recently co-authored a report with Jade Maglain for CSS called Russian attitudes are shifting as the war's effect come home.

And so I invited you today to talk about this report and go a bit more in depth on some of its points, and then also talk about Russian domestic politics more broadly.

And in your report, which is fascinating and we'll link it below in the description of that episode as always,

you and your call are linked to a lot of various polling, and I wanted to start with the sort of very broad question of how reliable is Russian domestic opinion polling, and could you also tell us about this specific polling that you are using there, you're referencing a lot extreme scan in this report.

“So can you just talk a bit to Lady Groundwork for the conversation?”

So this is not my first engagement with this very controversial issue, especially among many of the Russian liberals. The controversy, since the start of the war, has to do that based on the official data and the polling numbers, the support for the war, no matter how horrible and atrocious has consistently remained high in Russia, and many authors therefore question the reliability of

them polling in the third-chair in context. So full disclosure of political scientists,

the Colombian University trained, and in line also say do work with polling data both in Russia and across Central Europe. The notion that analysts, researchers, cannot work with the polling in the third-chair in settings by default is not correct, even in China and even in the Iran, there are pools being run in the peer-reviewed articles being published. Russia is not an exception, and frankly before 2022, few people seriously questioned the reliability, at least

“of the broad of trends that are being reported by the poll. So it's important to keep in mind that”

many of the questions emerged as the 2022 war started, it just felt very unbelievable to many observers that Russians would rally around something as similarly, unjustified controversial in the tortures as this war began. But in 2024, late 2024, specifically for that Atlantic Council, I made the analysis of the works by various pollsters, political scientists, who specifically tried to engage with that very question, whether polls and Russia are reliable,

and the way they do this is very technical. Basically, for our audiences, it's important to

realize that for a researcher to find some inconsistencies would be big finding, in such a

some biases. And they looked at the way the samples have been constructed, the various technical

“indicators, how do people understand sensitive questions? There are a number of”

methodological tools to use like listske experiments when you ask the question in directly allowing the person an escape route, right if they don't really want to publicly announce their dislike for the war. And all of them more or less consistently exposed that to the extent that you could trust the poll and data before you could trust it after. There are no major biases in the Russian polling, to the extent that such biases do exist, they probably remain at

several percentage points. One of the studies has found, for example, up to 10 percentage points

using listske experiments, the other ones found like zero. So within that number, which by the way,

probably corresponds to the number of genuine liberal Russian Russia, a basic alternative sort of data by liberal Russia. So all together to the extent that we trusted the Russian poll and data before 2022, we can broadly trust it after 2022. Of course, it's a repressive environment, of course, people also consume a lot of propaganda. So all of that plays a role and we shouldn't speed that a much more free environment is numbersable change. But nonetheless, people are generally

aligning with the state policies and that side indications of it is the lack of strong anti-war movement for the last four and a half years. Even outside of Russia where you can't speak copy and can be free, like you can be like me and saying that the war is horrible. One, a two in extent, right. There's a lot of the huge Russian desperate, of course, some have relatives in Russia, but others are more free to speak on many other schemes, specifically to be able to tell

the truth. Yet we do not see this entire movement, unfortunately, broadly reflecting this conflicted attitude on the side of even Russians in exile to the war. So if someone would ask you how many Russians supported the war, what would you say? I said, this passive alignment, I would say, around the war, people not necessarily willing to bear any personal sacrifices, has been fluctuating

“about 70%, 70% to 80% depends on your, I think 70% more reliable. Now, it depends on the method”

by which the questions it asks and it depends on the time. In recent years, this has been a role ding, so it's more in mid-60s now, and you can also pick up, like faculty in the, again, this may be up to 10% points, or those people who may be, may be misrepresented, they've used, so altogether still it's a majority. And important to keep in mind that this is majority, that's includes both more ideological groups, we call them Hawks in our analysis with Jade,

and more of the passive loyalists, you know, who just sort of follow along, whatever the Kremlin does, they are a majority of this group, and hence their opinions will change very quickly what the Kremlin changed, it's foolish. Before we, I do want to talk about those two groups, I think they're fascinating, but before we get into that, could you also explain extreme scan, because you referenced it a lot in your article and referenced their numbers.

After the war started, and again, in light of this controversy surrounding the Russian pooling, many of the dependent projects popped up, and the extreme scan is one of the examples of the independent projects that we've not been funded by the state. It's run by Hylianakonewa, prominent Russia's sociologist, who, by the way, is recently also designated a foreign agent

of Russia in Russia, basically reflecting your independent poster. The reason why we say that

particular pooling a lot, even if we do engage with others, right, in a light of causal wood, right, really go for absolute majority of the Russian poolsters, is that the Pacific extremist scan has looked at the word dynamic in the Russian borderline regions, the one that are near the front line. Well, they claim like Belgorod Korsk, and we just argued with Jade

“that if you want to see at how people respond to, you know, being, you mean exposed to immediate”

experience of the war, arguably, that's one way to look at how they will respond to them going drawn strikes at Russian refineries by Ukraine, so that just looked like a more feasible comparison. Okay, so with that out of the way, let's talk about the hawks and the lollists, you'll use the Russian society sort of in these two groups, so who are they, and how do they differ? So it's important to keep in mind that while majority in Russia do, unfortunately,

broadly aligned with the Kramlands war, this support is not uniform, it's heterogeneous, as I mentioned, so it is composed of a mochakish ideological core, this like broadly,

channel as Kramil propaganda on the state TVs, largely perhaps influenced by the Soviet, shaped linings, and they truly believe in the importance of the stronger pulse to Russia, strong national identification, something that distinguishes them, and depending on the specific

approach that you use, there's from 15 to 30 percent, it depends, right, the stronger financial

identity can be used as selecting criteria in order to identify the script, but specifically how many

“of them depends on basically the criteria that you impose. Important to keep in mind that”

they're a minority within this broader support for the war, and the kind of paradox is that throughout most of Putin's rule, this group tends to believe that Putin has been wick politically international, right? He does not adopt the strong enough bolster to respond to the West or whatever they see as, you know, very, Russia being unfairly treated on the international stage, a lot of revonches sentiments associated to this group. So they tend to rally behind Putin primarily one

he starts the war, and that's one of the reasons why if you look at the historical at the pools, this is the fifth war, Putin has started during his reign, and pretty much every single war was followed by this pattern of spike in the provol, for both Putin, and there was support relevant around the flag primarily because this hoax joined in the support. So they typically think that Putin is not strong enough, but finally once he starts the war, they believe they

final did the right thing. It came to sense. So, so cold, Z-Z-Niky Z-Niky Z-Niky Z-Niky. And what percentage of the overall population is that? So, as I mentioned, it depends on the approach

from 15 to 30 percent, it depends on the choice of, like how you look at the strong

international identification. The point point is that they are a minority within this larger support group. In the much one point group, and the one where, like the full controversy about the war support comes from, in the first place, it's this loyalist group, moderate group, although it's hard to call them moderates, obviously, when they actually support the war, but they are majority from, again, it varies from 35 to 40, some, and some service of to 50 percent, and the key

feature of this group. First of all, they're more likely to be female, maybe, and don't care much about politics, right? They don't really engage that very much with political questions. Their media consumption is much more diverse. In general, they just want to live their life, and they broadly support everything that the Kremlin does. It's the status quo group. Russian opposition leaders who ran for elections back in the day, often complained that every time

“they try to make, like, Russian electorates to vote for them, they often hear that you have to”

become the third, the power first, getting to power first, and then will vote vote for you.

So that's an important logic that people largely rally around 12 is in power, whatever the power represents today. As long as putting a power out there with it, and as long as they're more less satisfied with the status quo. So is this like your average rich Moscow-wide? I would say that perhaps you can argue, especially more recently, Moscow, unfortunately, has become very pro-putin and pro-war, it has an interesting line for them. There's a lot of debate

about that they sort of redistricted Moscow-edit new provincial regions to basically what Moscow constitutes to Moscow's district, and also, just as you imagine yourself, Moscow, many people in it actually benefited from the war from the sanctions or conventions, and as we will discuss later, the will support it's very strong, that's associated to personal perception of economic well-being,

“which is why it's so important what Ukraine is doing right now against the refineries,”

but broadly speaking, Moscow is doing pretty well, and not suffering very much from the consequences of the war, and also, by the Russian liberals, left fled from the country, right, meaning of the people who you might have met at Balutna, a protest in 2012, for example, currently in exile, those were basically replaced with more capitalist groups. It's also important to keep in mind that since 2011-12, the criminal deliberately

are going to substitute it the more independent entrepreneurs, businessmen, types of jobs, with the state public-related positions, so there was actually deliberate policy to create an electorate that's more dependent on the states, a lot of jobs right now, available in the primarily public sector-state-related sector, it's also associated to the ongoing renationalization, and as people becoming more dependent on the state,

almost by default, they become more loyalist, and so the criminal sort of looks quite aware

dependent on the state support. So you said that there are about 15 to 30 percent

“hogs, depending on how you count, yeah, how you define that, what about the loyalists?”

So the loyalist constitutes about 35 to 50 percent, again, it depends on your definition. The important thing is that they are majority, right, in the large controversies around in Russian pulling, so do they really support the war, largely pertains to how we interpret the support of this group, because you'll see in the Russian pulling this controversy that shows that people simultaneously support Russia's so-called special militarization, and at the same time,

they want peace, they want to stop the war also the majority, right? How is this possible? Well, if the war keeps escalating, right? It's because fundamentally, the war is the disturbance,

right? There's not something that's certainly there would be a bit of the first choice,

but it's also something that the criminal has assigned has decided to do, and because often

“in focus groups they say, like I'm not personally a foreign policy expert, so I delegate”

these decisions for Putin, Putin does the right thing if he decides to do it, he knows what he's done. So basically, there's the delegation of the authority of agency, if you will, creates this perception that whatever the state is doing is right, as long as I'm fine, like my life more or less continues, is before and things are okay. So the big, really, the big, really interesting question is what's going to happen to them when they realize their life

is no longer okay, and this is what we can discuss later, I will flag one thing, even if the support is passive, even if a person says okay, let Putin do what he wants, as long as I'm fine, and he does not bother me, right? I don't have to, oh my, my son, my husband doesn't have to go to the war, right, and I can just sustain my perfect little world as he is. So to what extent is this really a support? That's the big debate, right, man, especially people who question the

reliability of fools and how we interpret this. But I will flag that fundamentally, it is a green light, right? They do not oppose what the Kremlin is doing and fundamentally allow the Kremlin to continue,

whatever it wants, no matter how a torches horrible the war is, and basically delegate the agency,

the authority to the Kremlin, right? That delegation is a choice, I would flag in accordingly, that is still a support, even if passive and latent, it allows the Kremlin a Putin to continue to do whatever they want. Do we know how much these people have access to actual reliable real information and news? I don't know that's an impossible question to answer, but that's a fascinating question as to say, and that's because of course, absolutely we know that despite

the fact that people increasingly get an information on internet and Russia, even there, you can just compare on telegram, the following of the liberal channels, more position-minded channels, and the political Z, pro-war channels, and Z channels, and pro-war channels, by several orders of magnitude, typically surpass their position on dependent channels, that is definitely the case, the TV remains the main source of news, still, even if people in Christmas ship to the internet,

“and even on internet, they seek out liberal information that does not question the views, right?”

To avoid the cold cognitive dissonance, this is one of the major shocks that we've discovered since 2022, that no matter how huge the development of the disruption, people will try to preserve the world or try to seek out the information that does not fundamentally challenge what they used to, what they feel comfortable with, except when it concerns them personally, and this is again the fundamental challenge, pertaining specifically to the group of loyalists, we see consistently,

and we actually mention it with Jade, that once the shocks unravel and that could be "regorion-sattempted" mutiny, or sanctions in position by the West, it can be done going drawn strikes by crying on Russian refinery, so the moment something is not right, something like and balances the perfect comfortable world, in which they live, this is when people start seeking out actively independent information and following of the interventional spikes,

along with anxiety levels and Russia every single time, we again watch it right now, and you can talk to the people, the influences who run the independent channels, and they see this pattern, so the paradox here that is that many people do not want to find more independent information, but they don't want to find it when things are fine, they only look up for it when things are not good for them. You see in your report that loyalists dissatisfaction tends to express itself as

withdrawal, cynicism, private grumbling, and exit, so very much a very passive position, why is that?

think in terms of agency in terms of their ability to influence. That's a very Russian concept,

“right? I don't know if I'm running it. Unfortunately, it's biased here, because I am based in Kiev,”

so this is very complicated for me. Exactly what got Russia into this horrible place where it's now, almost suicidal in some ways, because of war that's horrible, that's not good for anybody, horrible for Ukraine, but also horrible for Russia. But this precisely, the attitude that the things will be, the Kremlin knows right, and I just mind my own business, and I just delegate the authority, the inability in some ways to think of one's souls, this heavenly agency,

and a broad perception of the power of the authorities, right, as weather. So, you know, when it rains, you don't try to stop the rain, you just sick of shelter, you get a softening umbrella. That's the basic attitude. And if you look at one of the major shocks during this war, the announcement of this partial mobilization by Putin in the fall 2022, that's exactly the response that we've seen, right? How do people respond? People will not

happen. We see that in the polling, Putin's approval and the war support dropped quite dramatically, and what we have seen is a huge exodus of people who try to flee this mobilization from Russia, but we did not see in the attempted protest, at least, mostly not, and there was some at effort in some regions and caucuses, in particular, but in general, the major response was avoidance. Haven't said that, you know, from Ukraine and perspective, this is just something to

factoring, but fundamentally, it's not necessarily nothing, right? If you cannot incentivize avoidance, sabotage, as we've seen in the late Soviet Union, as you mentioned, as the serious, very typical Soviet Russian response, that's still good enough, right? There's not, there's not nothing. We can, as long as people do not participate, maybe do not build those missiles, you know, do not go fight against Ukraine. That's good enough, as long as that is possible to incentivize

that behavior. But unfortunately, thinking about the Russia of the future, right? That's sort of edited, is precisely what prevent Russia from democratizing, because people just don't think of themselves as active citizens and don't try to to responsibility for what's going on with the country. And this is one of the reasons why, since the start of the war, the debate of Russia's responsibility for the war has been so active, right? It's not an issue for most outside observers. Obviously,

you're responsible, like I'm responsible, right, for what my country is doing. It's unfortunate long was by default, by my very nationality, but that is a huge question mark for many in Russia, because they just don't feel like they have anything to do with whatever the Kremlin is doing, very often. Or, as it's more typical of the loyalists, they're like, you know, the Kremlin knows best. I'm just a small person. If Putin decided it, he's a smart guy, he knows what he's doing.

If it wasn't for his actions, NATO would have been next to Moscow, or whatever, and excuse

“they come up with. It's important, by the way, there's still no clear agreement as to why the”

war has been fought. The most brutal war in Russia after Second World War, with the enormous number

of casualties, still no clear justification on the authority's side is to why the war has been fought in no clear agreement among the Russians. If you look at the institutions, not a single one, whether they're saving the Russian speakers and Ukraine quote unquote, or whether they're trying to stop NATO from expanding. Not a single justification, God, God, there's a 50% response, so the people are quite divided on it. And yet, they're still sort of accepting it. And that's

the fundamental strategy of Russia, the one that I'm probably going to get it into some horrible place. Do your current managed services really help run your operations? Or are they just running in circles? Running isn't enough anymore. With PWC's managed services, your operations don't just run, they evolve continuously, powered by AI embedded directly into your workflows. So instead of maintaining yesterday's model, you're building tomorrow's advantage. PWC's

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“lead stronger. Hi, the police here. My name is Katsof Rager. Why do you have to”

continue your crypto-experts? Every time you have a opinion, a self-mine processor was also a well-known venture coin, as the next is your strategy. You can also take a look at the crypto,

then crypto is simply a bit of a nonsense. Basically, you can create a 100-coins to trade,

sell your own money, buy your own money, and then you can get your free money, or an app store. No one has a clue about the reason. The hand-made crypto-variaries are built by the Russian Pay-Word Europe Solutions Limited, as well as the credit card, and the central bank of Ireland is regulated. You differentiate between military shocks and economic shocks. You've already touched on a little bit about this, so tell me how do the impact Russian public opinion differently?

that there is two groups of Russians constituting this war support, the so-called Hawks,

“and the so-called loyalists, and the key reasons why it's important to think of Russian”

war support as heterogeneous is that they go and respond differently to different sort of shocks. So the key response from Hawks, and this is when we look at the patterns in the borderland regions of Russia, our sighting extreme scamp pulling, is that Hawks stems to rally around the flag, because they think the war is justified and right, right by default. It's the right thing, and so the natural response is rallying around the flag. But for the loyalists who already

are a little bit sort of on defensive, you know, Putin knows what he's doing, but maybe, you know, I wouldn't be fine without the war, you know, I have other things to worry about, and the general we want the key preference to prove the economic situation. For them, the shocks generally are problematic, we see, as I mentioned, consistent decline in war-provalent Putin's approval associated to this major shocks, and particular problematic for them is the economic impact of the war. So they are

not willing to sacrifice the finances they will be on like the Hawks for some unclear purposes of

this war, because for them, as we discussed, there's no clear purpose in the first place.

Putin is for what I've reasoned, you know, why he's doing it, but I don't really care. I have other things to mind. And that is why economic shocks, in particular, are so problematic for these groups, and we consistently see that the Russian economic decline as well as personal economic decline perception that my personal finance is going to get worse, is consistent associated to diminishing war support. Since early 2026, we've seen the Russian economy has been stagnating,

some analysts are even suggesting in the recession. And accordingly, we've seen the erosion of the war support and growing demand for peace talks, together with Jade with site a lot of these numbers. And more specifically, the attacks on the refineries that Ukraine is conducting, therefore, are very, very instrumental. Of course, some will rally around the flag. We do actually see there's interviews with some people who can't find any gasoline and Russia, but they're like,

“that's because we have not responded to Ukraine's strong enough, that's their conclusion, right?”

But majority are not happy. It's very clear. The crisis is spreading. And economically, this is impacting people when all greedy, they know things are not going so well in Russia.

I will flag that this is the relatively new development in the first couple of years of the war,

wouldn't have implemented this so-called military-cognitionism policies, right? They a lot of money who has been in fluxed into the economy. And as a result, there was actually an increase in people's economic wall being, equality declined, and especially for working class groups, who benefited also from this competition for the jobs, for the military industrial complex, the well-being has improved. And so that actually coincided with growing support for war in the first couple of the years,

but that is done now. The economy is in decline. And on top of that, you have this issue with gasoline, that affects pretty much everyone. This is something that Ukraine has found that

“really is important for Russians, right? Everybody experiences this shortages of the gasoline,”

and this lines we also flagged with China's signify this reminiscent of the late Soviet period where people won lines in, thanks for not bringing the country now suddenly. This is back. It's a very typical image for anyone growing up or living in the post-Soviet space, yes, the lines

for anything. It's very dramatic. Yeah, even in America, I always find myself surprised as people

willing to stay in line. My first instinct is to avoid it, no matter what happens. What I'm one of the reason in the line is because I had my fair share of standing in line in my childhood growing up in Russia. So that perception is also sort of worsening the general atmosphere in the country. And er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er er

In the surrounding this perception of sustainable star score, primarily affecting the loyalists, these groups for whom I mentioned the economic considerations matter far more than any ideological considerations. So potentially, Ukraine has found something that's really problematic. I will also flag that it seems like for the third month in the row starting May, Russians report Ukrainian drone strikes is the most significant event of the month. Again, quite an achievement, and

their directly concise with ongoing decline in war approval, we sign one of the fallen companies

since the start of the war has found a record 81% of respondents say that they want the war to end.

“Again, this is not the perfect world given that majority of those people typically want to hold”

on to the territories that Russia occupies in Ukraine. But nonetheless, it's a very significant

development, and the first time we've seen the war truly coming to Russia since the start of the war.

That last statistic that he wrote up, you do mention it, and of course, in your report, you say that a record 81% of respondents say they would support ending the war tomorrow. But then, of course, at the same time, we've mentioned that broadly 70-ish percent of Russians support the war. So how does that how does that square for you? Surely there hasn't actually been this radical flip. How does this coexist? So the fact that there's majority of those who support the war and those

majority of those who want to stop the war, right? Yeah, precisely, that's the loyalist issue, right? There's a hoax, they don't want to stop the war, they want to continue, and they actually anything they want the Russia to become even more radical and rock. They like saying that we haven't

“really started things yet. I go in some of the Russia-Frogantists, which is kind of ironic,”

right, given how much Russia has lost lost already. But as I said, loyalist simultaneously, sort of

green light, whatever the Kremlin has done, but not too excited about the war, what the war is bringing to them, right? So you can have this almost, guys, a friend. Well, do you want you simultaneously do support? Whatever the Kremlin does, if Putin chooses to do it, okay, let's him do it, but your personal preference would have been enough. Let him do whatever he wants, but really it's time to stop. Come on, let's do it, right? You know, it's time, clearly, you know,

things are not doing so well. So the personal preference would have been not to continue. Again, keep in mind that they still want to hold on to whatever has been occupied in Ukraine. And that's important. So from that perspective, it is a support for the war still, right, because they like what they've gotten, they still the sentiment that it's Russia's right to do that. So that's not a clear opposition to the war in the sense that I mentioned you and I, what Russia's doing in Ukraine.

“Right. I mean, yeah, I did want to ask about the terms of how the war would end because I think”

the terms of the end of the war are much more important to both sides, to both Ukrainian and Russia than the end in itself, right? So the vast majority of these people, the vast majority of the

loyalists and in general, the vast majority of Russians would not want, like they basically support

Russia's maximalist views, or do they right now? Like, for example, do they also support continuing the war until they get in bus? Or do they, or do they support just ending it up, like just freezing the front line? Or how much do we know about the various terms on the table? And by the way, I just want to say that none of that matters too much, be given that it's very flexible perception, right? It's largely shaped by propaganda, even what they say in right now is

not necessarily consistent and congruent against the two the full won't will do. It's just a preference, right, for temper preference. There's a lot of studies that show that, specifically within the lowest group, a lot of inconsistencies, right, that they support the war, but for example, they want to personal sacrifices economically. They want Russia to primarily invest in a economic well-being, which technically is not compatible with investment in the military. So there's not,

it is a bit that's good for an accurate. We're not necessarily talking of a holistic congruent worldview, or for an adult person who has really contested the viewpoints and built some coherent full, holistic full to you. That is not necessarily the case in public opinion and in countries, inherently contradictory. That's also true. Maybe more so for Russia, given the lack of democratic experience of democratic deliberation. So yeah, most likely is if you were,

if you wouldn't want to stop right now, there would be really popular among a very significant population, if Russia would to start losing and experience some defeat, this is the interesting question. That community, the Hawks groups, this is very easy to answer. They will clearly oppose any losses, right, and if anything, they want to continue. In some ways, there's more consistency among those groups, right. There's a very revuncious new imperialist attitude

of restoration of the Soviet Union. But for this little majority, most likely there would be very a lot of excitement if the war has started. But again, they probably will be some word okay with the Kremlin continuing for now, right. We don't see so far a very strong holistic preference, as we discussed formed in order to fully stop the war with some ghosts associated to them personal effort. The big question is what the response will be, is Russia would start losing

territories? Probably it will happen against the backdrop of the economic crisis, series of

This is when they are probably the really dramatic decline for the war's internal for the idea

of this special melt preparation. And most likely people will, at least the lowest group will be, whatever, let's just refocus on something that matters more. In some ways, reminiscent of Latvia Union early 1990s, Latvia Union we don't really have a lot of pooling, but early 1990s we do, right. And there's a lot of disagreement with the Russian public opinion as to where Russia belongs, where should it be going, you know, shall it rebuild the great quote of Soviet Union or shall it

be fallen the Western? But I imagine there will be like this public opinion, the vision will become one more kind of frantic with people just, the series preference for, you know, sustaining the will being or were any other options. But again, why yet to see that, and there's been 25 years

of points rule, so things may have changed. I will flag one thing and separate analysis that we've

done with Professor Graham Robertson, Yensie Chapel Hill, Ian Peter Pomerantof, the Brahman Institute of Michigan School, we find that the people generally follow Putin's lead, whatever he says

“on the war. So if you want to be stalks and stop negotiations, they will support it. And if he”

wants to continue to support the world, they will support it. And that's exactly as we discussed, like the loyalist patterns. With things changes, when we tell them, let some number of questions about Russia, then being Russian, what does it mean? Essentially, we'll prime them on identity. And then we see that they're less likely to support the peace negotiations, immediately. In other words, propaganda, right? And this idea of Russia's greatness, do contribute to the willingness

to continuously support the war, even if Putin says otherwise. So that's the point to keep in mind that Russia being sort of right now actively indoctrinated and brainwashed by the Kremlin. Unfortunately, they sort of make some of the loyalists switch to the more hawkish camp. And that is something for us to keep in mind. The future, even if the war were to stop, there will be significant revonches, constituencies still are forming in Russia, which unfortunately,

like literally create this toxic loop in which the country is stuck. So there is this widespread assumption, I think, you know, amongst Ukrainians and just in general, people who watch the war that there is a certain breaking point for Putin, right? Appointed, which the cost of the war will grow so high that he will have to concede and make a deal and stop the war. And, you know, on this assumption, of course, rests the entire

Ukrainian strategy that we have to raise the costs for Russia, bring the war home for the Russians.

“That's what Ukrainians always say. And I find this argument interesting because this assumes that”

that point exists, right? It assumes that there is a breaking point. Do you think it exists? And, if yes, do you have any idea what it is? I think the real breaking point, and then, again, that's pure speculation. Unfortunately, we have been consistently, orphaned. To optimistic, even I, being the skeptical Russia, still optimistic about what is going to take to, you know, make Russians come to this sentence, Census. But I think that to the extent that

that point exists, it will take an economic crisis, a full blow in economic crisis, off the kind right may be seen in 2008, or likely Soviet Union in most likely Gradle, not fast, right? The one of the things that we flag with Jade is that while the attacks and refineries are definitely impacting the Russian opinion that we discussed, right? It will take quite some time. It's a gradual change. And the propaganda and there's a lot of forces within the Kremlin

that has a much better grip on the Russian public sentiment in a lot of familiarity with it over the last 25 years, right? That works in the opposite direction. So it's like various streams that are clashing. And so it's not going to be as easy as one would imagine. Like, Russian tolerance to casualties has apparently been much, much stronger than may you have expected. All right, just a reminder that L.S.A.S. colleagues recently released a report flagging this enormous

situation, right? For the Russians, right, that this war has exceeded all of the wars

that Russia and the Soviet Union have thought since the end of the Second World War in casualties,

and yet they still keep coming and keep pushing. For an Oakley purpose and without cruel and descending, why the war has been thought as we discussed. So a random corporation just released an interesting analysis of the studied dissertation that shows, again, that for Russians,

“casualties in the war don't seem to be to play an important role, even like on the you know,”

ideational level. For example, if they offer to replace the people with robots, they don't necessarily, you know, care as much about fuel, fuel, fuel, human losses.

and they're likely to succeed, which is somewhat paradoxical, given that we don't even know.

L.S.A.S.A. doesn't even agree why the war is being thought and but it's morally justified. But just something to keep in mind, we have discovered that the price of human life in Russia is extremely low. We kind of knew that already, but it's also extremely visible now for, after four and a half years of this war. But the economic cost is where many of the loyalists once sort of write alone, who are not necessarily, like, supideological invested in this war,

are going to start increasingly questioning this developments, and that is already happening. It has to be happening at the largest scale, and it's very important that four and a half years after the war started, the war is going completely up as a direction from what the Crown has imagined it to be, right? It's not at all an occupation of Ukraine in three days or weeks. In fact, the war is coming back to Russia and Ukraine is stronger and stronger in

“much more sophisticated and adapted at influencing Russia. And last but not the least, I think that”

the economic cost matters beyond just shifting public opinion, right? As I mentioned before, we have not, not a complete understanding of how Russians are responded to the war, and the Crown is very good at normalizing. So we together with Jade, we've been showing this draft of our analysis to the psychological colleagues, and while most agreed with us, Assam, I've said that yes, but it's also possible that the Crown will manage to present this

gasoline crisis in unorimal, and it's also possible that people will agree, because we've seen unfortunately repeatedly that being the case in Russia, even where it seems as an outsider,

it seems completely paradoxical and trucking that people will accept it. But the second reason

why the war is important is that the economic cost is important is that they just shrink the resource that the Crown lands disposal, right, less gasoline, available is not just less gasoline for Russians, it's just less gasoline for also for the Russian Army, and this is a fundamental issue. But with fewer resources in much, we could put in hands capable of delivering way if your last destruction for Ukraine. So that is not a channel for which this impact is working.

I mean also, just to follow up, A does put in even care about public opinion, and B does

“key care about it, considering that we discussed that even if loyalists start losing faith”

and what the Crown is doing, their reaction is inward. So we're not going to see any sort of public revolution or public protests. This is faction wolf spread, and we know from my multiple political sense, which is that public dissection is more likely in a required regime still lead to elitesplits, right? So it's not an instant process, but it's not nothing. And the Crownland does care about the public opinion. We know that they do multiple polling, right? They do worry a lot

about the Russian identity, how the Russians think of themselves, and they know that it's a really

powerful tool to mobilize people to fall the war. So that is for sure. And we know that the

public opinion to the extent matters because today the Crownland tried to create this perception of normalcy to Russia, right? If you remember the partial mobilization, there was multiple programland ads, influences, influencing campaigns, trying to demonstrate that sheriff people who are being called recruited is really minor. And nobody has something to worry about. And that's consistently the way the Crownland tools to present the war to the Russians. Don't worry,

look elsewhere, things are fine, everything's great, we're winning, just give us some time, mind-owned business. And that's got to be done for a reason, right? That probably because they know that the state is less responsive to alternatives. And as we discussed, even if these are not the main considerations that will alter puts perceptions, none of the lessons will make it harder for the Crownland to fight this war, create more obstacles in the situation of all registered

kingdom economic resources, more challenging trade-offs. So while the public opinion is by far not the main reasons why I think the Crownland's fighting the war, it does play a role in either enabling or preventing the Crownland from fully investing in this war effort and accordingly, it matters for a crane. Well Maria, this was fascinating, thank you so much for coming on and we'll have you on again in the future. Thanks a lot for having me.

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