Russian citizens exhibit increasing signs of burnout over Ukraine invasion

KYIV -- Russians are becoming increasingly apathetic about Moscow's invasion of Ukraine and questioning its justifications, according to secret polls conducted by Russian President Vladimir Putin's regime.

Authorities have been carrying out such surveys to ascertain Russians' real attitude toward the war, Russian opposition publication Meduza reported late last year, citing sources close to the Kremlin.

Such studies have disappointed Russian authorities.

Russians "do not feel optimistic about their future or the future of the country," said one source.

"This is not a shift into joining the [political] opposition or completely rejecting the special military operation. It's indifference and apathy. There isn't anything inspiring. Nothing is pulling people forward. 'Just get away from us. Don't meddle with us'," the source said.

Third-party polling has found similar results.

Russian Field, a Russian research firm specialising in sociological research, conducted a survey in Moscow in November to understand what the capital's residents think about the war.

Only 19% of surveyed Muscovites expressed optimism about their future, while 29% said that life would become harder, the study found.

Additionally, 56% of respondents do not trust official information on losses during the war.

Misled

Such numbers are unsurprising given how the war has gone, according to Dmitry Gromakov, a Kyiv sociologist and communications analyst at the International Centre for Countering Russian Propaganda.

"Everything went wrong," Gromakov said.

Russians were misled to think that Ukraine was waiting for "liberation", and instead found active resistance -- and defeat, according to Gromakov.

"In other words, not a single basic narrative of Russian propaganda proved true in this conflict," he said. "As it happens, Ukrainians don't really want to live in the Russian world, and there is practically zero support for Russia here."

The so-called special operation has now mutated into a greater war with the West that "no one signed up for", he added.

"The Russians were not physically prepared to fight... They were not ready for a mobilisation, for having to go to war and die."

"They thought that they would watch a 'special military operation' on TV, like a soccer game between Team Putin and Team [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy. But it turned out that not everything is so simple," said Gromakov.

"This is a real war in which their children are dying."

The coffins arriving in Russian provinces every day and the lack of victories at the front are giving Russians a feeling of fatigue and hopelessness, he said.

"Russians are showing the first signs of emotional burnout regarding the war. That's where these numbers are coming from," Gromakov said.

"That's why so many Russians don't support or don't understand this war."

Dangerous apathy

Russian apathy could be a gateway to a greater protest movement, say some observers.

"Society is currently halfway on the path from loyalty to opposition and really is drifting in that direction. The number of the regime's loyalists and supporters is decreasing," Russian political scientist Abbas Gallyamov said during an interview on the programme Air, which was published on the Khodorkovsky LIVE YouTube channel on November 23.

"Their motivation, their desire to voice their point of view is falling. They are becoming more and more demotivated, and this is very significant."

Support for Putin grew at the start of the invasion, as Russians rallied around their leader amid what they saw as difficult times, according to Serhii Shtepa, a Kyiv-based sociologist and member of the Association of Social Psychologists.

"But now everything is changing. People are beginning to see clearly. Now all that remains is to wait for a crack among the elite ... as soon as it arises, riots will begin there," she told Caravanserai.

For its part, the Kremlin has been doing everything it can to avoid large-scale protests and "cut off" a potentially disgruntled electorate as much as possible.

Authorities have been harassing groups such as the Council of Mothers and Wives, which spoke out against the mobilisation.

"People are being intimidated into silence," Yelena Trifonova, editor of the online magazine People of Baikal, told Caravanserai.

Trifonova, a native of Irkutsk, last June described the Kremlin's efforts to silence mothers who lost children in the war.

By September, she was forced to flee from persecution by Russian security forces.

"We left immediately on September 25 after the partial mobilisation was announced [on September 21]. My colleague and I got ourselves out because we were detained after a rally against mobilisation."

"Then the FSB [Federal Security Service] came to the editorial office. We flew out the next day. For now, we're staying in Riga," Trifonova said.

"We are still working. We still have journalists in Russia. But now we've removed all first and last names from the website," she said.

"Now we've received the 'honourary' status of foreign agents simply for giving interviews to foreign media outlets," she added, referring to a law used by Russian authorities to suppress civil society and press freedom within the country.