Unpopular War: Russian Opponents and Non-Opponents of the Invasion of Ukraine. Part 1

The 'grey zone' in an ethnographic perspective

We know from mass opinion polls that throughout 2023 the number of both staunch supporters and staunch opponents of the war decreased, while the number of those avoiding the question of their stance on the war and those without a definite opinion increased (→ Re:Russia: Second demobilisation). At the beginning of the war, the share of its declarative supporters was 63%, but it subsequently decreased, holding steady at around 53% for most of 2023 (→ Re:Russia: Deadlocks of war). Meanwhile, the group of 'abstainers' –those who find it difficult or refuse to answer the question about their stance on the war – grew from 28% to 36% during 2023.

In other words, the reduction in the number of people willing to express declarative support for the war does not lead to an increase in the share of its opponents but rather to the expansion of the so-called grey zone. The 'grey zone' consists, on one hand, of people with vague, contradictory attitudes toward the war, and on the other hand, of those who are not ready to discuss their stance on it with strangers. To understand what is happening in this 'grey zone', qualitative methods are needed, such as long conversations where the war is not so much the focus as it is the background. Especially useful are informal conversations without recording devices, during which people are much more open.

This was the nature of our study, in which we examined the perception of the war by its opponents and non-opponents. It was the third stage of a large-scale project dedicated to Russians' attitudes toward the war. The first two stages were based exclusively on interviews and mainly covered residents of the capitals. Their results are in the reports 'Distant Close War' (2022) and 'Coming to Terms with the Inevitable' (2023).

For the third stage, we decided to conduct ethnographic research, observing the Russian military reality from within. We selected three regions: the geographically close to the front Krasnodar Krai (Yuzhny Sokol, about 40,000 inhabitants; Novonekrasovsk, about 40,000 inhabitants, both names changed; Krasnodar), the 'average' in many respects (e.g., in terms of the number of citizens mobilised and the population's income) Sverdlovsk Oblast (Cheremushkin, about 12,000 inhabitants, name changed) and the Republic of Buryatia (Udurg village, about 10,000 inhabitants, name changed; Ulan-Ude), one of the leaders in term of mobilisation and contract recruitment. OEach region had one researcher, each spending about a month living in one, two, or three settlements. All three trips took place from late August to mid-November 2023. Some researchers already had acquaintances and contacts in the regions, while others did not, so the work in each 'field' differed. Researchers collected in-depth interviews, but primarily conducted ethnographic observations. They attended public events with patriotic and military themes. They engaged in conversations with drivers, shopkeepers, bartenders and manicurists, inadvertently asking them how urban life was affected by the so-called ‘special military operation’. They made new acquaintances, went on walks, to cafes, and invited them home – and talked, observing how they did (or did not) talk about the war. Immediately after conversations, researchers recorded their content and observations in ethnographic diaries – of course, anonymously. A detailed report on the study is published on the website of the Public Sociology Laboratory; a sociological essay based on it, devoted to the presence of war in the everyday life of a small town in the Sverdlovsk region, is published on the Re:Russia website (→ Ilya Roshal, Sasha Kappinen: Parallel Cheremushkin).

In this study, we refer to opponents of the war as those who consistently criticise the war in their communications with us, never switching to justify it. Accordingly, we call everyone else non-opponents. Among the latter are both staunch supporters of the war and those who justify the war as the 'lesser evil' or try to distance themselves from evaluating it, representing the so-called ‘grey zone’.

Previously, we primarily relied on in-depth interviews that involved recorded responses to specific questions. Now, thanks to ethnographic methods, we were able to see how people talk about the war in informal settings, across different circumstances and contexts. These observations led us to an important conclusion: while the change in conversation format did not significantly affect the evaluation of the situation by both war opponents and its staunch supporters, the judgments about the war by the majority of non-opponents were context and communication format dependent. According to our researchers (who sometimes made provocatively experimental remarks), people switched between criticising and justifying the war in ways that seemed surprising at first glance.

The ethnographic method, combined with interviews and focus groups, allowed us to draw an important conclusion about the dynamics of how non-opponents perceive the situation in the country and the war. Compared to the fall of 2022, non-opponents, especially the apolitical ones, have become more critical of the war while simultaneously feeling more connected to the country and the state leading this war. Simplifying, one could say they have become both more critical and more patriotic. However, this combination of criticism and patriotism has not led to an apparent political synthesis, such as 'critical patriotism' in the spirit of 'I love my country but hate the state'.

Another major distinction in the new situation is that the volume and nature of information about the war have changed over two years. At the beginning of the war, when discussing and justifying it, informants primarily relied on news from the media. Over time, they accumulated many personal observations and knowledge about the war, not mediated by the press and social networks, which they gathered from conversations with those who had been to the front or their acquaintances. By the end of the second year of the war, hardly anyone in small towns did not personally know someone who had participated in the war. Typically, referring to more personal, unmediated knowledge of the war, our interlocutors criticised it, contrasting this 'truth' with the official television narrative.

Still, there are boys I know who are there, and they say some things that, of course, will not be shown on TV... Four months ago, a boy came, a very young boy, 20 years old, came to visit an acquaintance... ‘Don't believe what they say on TV. It's not that. Everything that is shown there is a lie’. At one time it was about Artemivsk, that we had taken it. 'We didn't advance anywhere, we're retreating. But they won't show you that' (interview, female, 43, museum worker, Cheremushkin, August 2023).

The new facts people learn from personal conversations with acquaintances are endowed with the legitimacy of 'truthful' knowledge, contrasted with the television lies. This 'truthful' status sometimes contributes to developing a more generalised criticism of the war, questioning even the actions of the state as such ('for what, for whom are we fighting?'). However, while developing various versions of such criticism, non-opponents of the war do not become its opponents. Rhetorical questions about the war's meaning and the state's justified actions rarely turn into direct accusations of the authorities as responsible for starting the war.

Criticism of war: 'family', economic and 'class' criticism

Personal knowledge about the war, as it accumulates, becomes the subject of conversations and gossip. In the context of the risk of being drafted to the front and the reality that familiar people are already there, criticism of the war arises from everyday, domestic conversations about the personal lives of our interlocutors and their acquaintances – akin to the criticism of various deviations from behaviour that conforms to societal moral norms. For instance, these evaluations often concern the 'immoral' behaviour of women whose husbands are at the front or have died.

In one informal conversation in Cheremushkin, nurse Zhanna complained about her husband's desire to go to the front: 'I told him: 'Do you understand that you have a small child, you have me. If you leave, what will happen? Who will raise your child?'' (ethnographic diary, Cheremushkin, August 2023). Weighing the risks of her husband possibly going to the front, Zhanna portrays the war as a destructive deviation from the norm for the family. Conversations filled with such evaluations turn into indirect criticism of the war in other situations as well. For example, when discussing whether the life of a loved one or the money received from the state is more valuable, our interlocutors (especially women) make a choice in favour of life.

People who generally justify the war may criticise various aspects of it from an economic perspective. A significant point of discontent among our interlocutors is the equipment and preparation of those whom the state calls up and sends to the front. Interlocutors often complain that the costs of preparing the mobilised (and volunteers) fall entirely on their families. For instance, in one informal conversation, our interlocutor initially claimed that all his acquaintances who went to the front were generally satisfied with the payments. However, he then remembered a specific acquaintance who, although he received all the payments regularly, had to spend his own money to repair and refuel the vehicle he used for combat missions (ethnographic diary, Cheremushkin, September 2023).

Economic criticism of the war is sometimes more than just complaints about specific injustices. It concerns the re-forming social contract between citizens and the state during wartime: if you take our men, we expect you to ensure their safety and our well-being in exchange for loyalty. 'Contractual' claims against the state arise in various contexts. For example, elderly resident Lyubov Vasilievna from Cheremushkin generally sincerely justifies the 'special operation', but at the same time, she does not consider it a people's patriotic war. While she donated money to help the army and the front at the beginning of the war, a year and a half later, she admitted she did so not on her own initiative but at the insistent suggestion of the city administration, and she believes that the state leading the military actions should be sponsoring them. 'They are fighting for the Motherland', she complained in one of her conversations with our researcher. 'Why should I? My pension is small, and they raised my electricity bill. Then don't raise it – I will help the soldier' (ethnographic diary, Cheremushkin, August 2023).

Many of our interlocutors are representatives of underprivileged, economically vulnerable groups, residents of small and poor settlements, so their criticism focuses on social issues. Vitya, a young working-class man who generally supports the 'special operation', also criticises it. From his perspective, the war breeds poverty and social insecurity. During friendly gatherings, Vitya expressed his frustration that veterans of the Afghan war received nothing from the state. 'That's why I say there's no point in it. There's no point in any war... It's only beneficial for those higher up. Land and stuff, it's all about money! War is money laundering, that's all!' (ethnographic diary, Cheremushkin, September 2023).

Participants in the focus groups we conducted with Chronicles and ExtremeScan often said that the 'special operation' had exacerbated the gap between the people and the authorities. 'There is a huge gap between the authorities and the people', said one participant (focus group, Samara, November 2023). 'They have their own society at the top, and they decide and manage everything themselves', added another informant (focus group, Samara, November 2023). According to Lyuda from Cheremushkin, 'those bastards are dividing up the land! And our guys are just dying because they can't divide up the land'. Her colleague Marina believes, 'It's a political war – politicians are fighting among themselves, laundering money, dealing weapons, back and forth' (ethnographic diary, Cheremushkin, August 2023).

Indeed, social criticism of the war, like other types of criticism, is not just moralising. Vitya, mentioned earlier, also expressed his indignation about why deputies and generals do not send their sons to the front. 'Many would support Prigozhin because the Russian government needs to be removed. All those deputies and all that, they are not needed!' he concluded (ethnographic diary, Cheremushkin, September 2023).

From these critical judgments, which permeate the rather eclectic statements of informants about the war, an important conclusion follows. Over the two years of the war, the Russian authorities have not been able to convincingly explain its goals. In particular, this is why the critical statements of the non-opponents of the war often sound questioning. 'What are we fighting for?' Or: 'What do they want from all this?' Nurse Zhanna from Cheremushkin expressed her indignation during friendly gatherings: 'We are fighting for nothing. I don't understand any of it. Why should our children, someone's sons, husbands, I don't know, shed blood? For what?' (ethnographic diary, Cheremushkin, August 2023).

Such criticism is not political criticism of the Russian authorities' policies in the direct sense – rather, it is 'class' criticism, opposing the 'elites' and 'ordinary people'. However, it clearly highlights the lack of understanding of a 'common' goal that unites the former and the latter.

Communicative modes of 'criticism' and 'justification'

Thus, some of our interlocutors criticise the war in general as well as the generalised 'Russian authorities' as a 'class'. However, this criticism, even in its most acute forms, does not turn them into opponents of the war.

During informal conversations, non-opponents of the war often criticised the 'special operation' in various aspects for harming Russians, and developing this kind of criticism with clarifying questions helped to amplify it. But as soon as someone asked a question like, 'Maybe Russia shouldn't have started the war?' a significant portion of the non-opponents reacted with emotional exclamations such as 'We didn't start it; they attacked us' or 'It was necessary; there was no other way!' Questions about the advisability of starting the war led our interlocutors to switch to energetically justifying it. Admitting in one part of the conversation that they did not understand the meaning and goals of the 'special military operation', in the next part our interlocutors could say something completely opposite: that the meaning of the war is extremely concrete, and everything happening is inevitable, with many preconditions in the past and present.

Father Alexei and his wife Vera from Sverdlovsk Oblast, in conversation with our researcher, suggested that if the two ‘brotherly nations’ had declared their unwillingness to fight, there would have been no war. 'But on the eve of the war, there were only a handful of people in Russia who wanted to fight, and the war still began', the researcher countered. Her interlocutors unexpectedly agreed: 'Nobody wanted it, nobody wanted it', they said one after another. 'But that didn’t stop the war from starting', the researcher concluded. And then Father Alexei parried: 'But we didn’t start the war!' 'And now we are for peace', added Vera. And Father Alexei concluded her thought: 'But we must understand that there can be no peace ahead of victory. Peace can be a consequence of victory' (ethnographic diary, Cheremushkin, September 2023).

Mentioning Russia's attack on Ukraine often led our interlocutors to justify the war as defensive rather than aggressive.

Question: What do you think would have happened if we had not sent in troops on the 24th?

Answer: It's hard to say. But again, history – you know the spy Richard Sorge? How many times did he say they were going to attack? No one paid attention, a non-aggression pact was signed. They waited… So maybe it’s better to be ahead?.. The thing is, history is always what if, conditional mood. Especially since now the Luhansk and Donetsk republics are part of Russia, and our forces aren't moving further, they're defending all this (interview, female, 65 years old, pensioner, Cheremushkin, September 2023).

At the same time, the set of arguments justifying the war remains the same (→ Svetlana Erpyleva: 'Once it started, it can't be stopped'). People explain the war as a step to protect the residents of Donbas from Ukraine or, more often, to protect Russia from the NATO threat. When asked, 'What are we fighting for?' Vitya, who was angry that politicians and generals don't send their children to war, responded somewhat aggressively: 'What do you mean, for what? Initially, it was said that the Americans were supposed to occupy Ukrainian territories, set up their missiles there'. Artem agreed with him: 'If Ukraine joins NATO, then America can place missiles closer to Moscow' (ethnographic diary, Cheremushkin, September 2023).

It can be said that the justification of the war and its criticism operate as two different communicative modes between which our interlocutors constantly switch during live conversations. That is, these arguments are not elements of an established, reflective worldview. This lack of reflection reveals itself when our interlocutors often start to sound uncertain when faced with the need to develop or defend any of these arguments in a discussion format. Sometimes they directly indicate that they doubt their words. Continuing the conversation with Vitya and Artem, the researcher decided to provoke them by cautiously stating that Russia seems to be coming to Ukraine and imposing its own order there, that is, our army behaves 'like bandits'. The researcher immediately added that she did not want to say anything bad about Russia but was simply trying to understand the situation. 'No, I understand', Artem replied conciliatorily. 'Agreed. There's a lot that's unclear for each of us in general' (ethnographic diary, Cheremushkin, September 2023).

The reality of the war for many of our interlocutors splits into two parts: the abstract 'geopolitical' and the more understandable, related to the impact of the war on daily life, their own and their loved ones, due to mobilisation, family breakdowns, injuries, and deaths. 'Well, you see, it’s been accumulating, accumulating for a long time. But that’s not the point… The most painful thing is that children are left without fathers, mothers without sons, wives', lamented Artem (ethnographic diary, Cheremushkin, September 2023). In other words, more credible, albeit critical, knowledge of the war is contrasted with less credible ('it's kind of like') but 'political' arguments about the inevitability of the war.

A consistent anti-war narrative portrays the war in Ukraine as criminal, where the perpetrators are primarily the political and military leadership of Russia and, in some versions, Russian soldiers. Criticism of the war from apolitical Russians does not imply an interpretation of the war as a crime with a perpetrator and a victim. For them, war is a struggle of political actors who 'divide' lands, 'launder' money, and 'produce' weapons. The 'victims of the war' in the eyes of non-opponents are primarily ordinary Russians dying because of the ambitions of the authorities. In other words, the criticism from consistent war opponents is directed at relations between states, while the criticism from non-opponents is directed at relations between the Russian state and society. Consequently, when interlocutors of non-opponents of the war emphasise the harm that the Russian state inflicts on its citizens by continuing the 'special operation', non-opponents pick up such criticism. When their interlocutors, on the contrary, emphasise Russia's responsibility or guilt towards Ukraine, non-opponents begin to justify Russia's actions.

During informal gatherings, anti-war opponent Tonya, talking about another mobilised person who had recently returned in a coffin, blamed the Russian leadership for what happened. Her remark provoked a passionate speech from Lyuda: 'They send children to fight! For what?! I can’t understand this policy at all – what do they want from all this?!' The researcher, holding anti-war views, logically, as she thought, made the following suggestion from this speech: 'So maybe we should just withdraw the troops tomorrow and end this?' But Lyuda unexpectedly began to aggressively defend Russia’s actions: 'These USA people are bombing civilians! – she shouted. – They are just killing civilians and blaming it all on Russia! And in all this, it's not true, damn it!' (ethnographic diary, Cheremushkin, August 2023).

Unable to oppose the authoritarian state that started the war and influence it, our interlocutors take such accusations personally and switch from criticism to justifying the war. This storyline of shifting responsibility arose repeatedly. For example, in the suburbs of Cheremushkin, our researcher shared with Father Valentin the idea that human deaths are always a tragedy, whether it be the deaths of Russians or Ukrainians. She thought that a clergyman should, like no one else, appreciate the value of human life and the principle of 'Thou shalt not kill'. 'Look', she said, 'people live in Kharkiv, let's say, and suddenly the war begins, fighting starts, people die'. 'We are not to blame for this', Father Valentin suddenly replied, although the researcher had not raised the issue of guilt and responsibility. 'Those who started this war are to blame; it was the devil who did this'. The researcher made another attempt: 'But many civilians, children and the elderly, women, innocent people, die there'. Father Valentin: 'Look, we are not to blame for this, we do not kill civilians' (ethnographic diary, Cheremushkin, September 2023).

In Krasnodar Krai, Elena, a real estate agent who came to collect the keys to her rental flat, began to complain about the behaviour of her relatives from Ukraine who did not want to communicate with her: 'And what do I have to do with it? Did I want this war or did I start it?' The researcher’s remark fueled Elena’s emotions – she began to defend the state’s actions, claiming that Ukrainians had long 'hated Russians' and 'wanted to slit Russians' throats' (ethnographic diary, Krasnodar, October 2023).

Thus, despite the increasing criticism of military actions, non-opponents of the war continue to justify it, sometimes quite emotionally. Partly, this justification is driven by the desire to defend Russia, which violated commonly accepted moral norms with its invasion of Ukraine.

Patriotisms and identities

Despite the fact that criticism of the war does not turn into an anti-war stance and the justification of the war by this group of informants does not become a consistently pro-war position, there is something that lends a certain coherence to their views. When criticising the war, our interlocutors conclude that it harms Russians and Russia: it destroys families, leads to deaths, forces the state to increase defence spending at the expense of social assistance and the country's economic development. At the same time, justifying the war, they insist that it is being waged to protect Russia from threats. By defending Russia, our interlocutors defend an undefined national 'we' that exists by default – defending it because this 'we' faces the threat of stigmatisation, that is, being accused of military aggression.

A minority of our informants, in justifying the war, demonstrate ideological patriotism, reproducing the official rhetoric of the 'Western threat':

'As for the 'special military operation', my opinion is that Putin has said many times to remove your bases, don’t come close to our borders. Why are you doing this? Why are they so concerned about Ukraine? I believe that the Maidan in Ukraine, all this was done by obvious hands. So he's just trying not to let that happen. And there were such attempts in Belarus, and there were such attempts in Russia, take for example Bolotnaya Square. They are always trying to stir things up' (interview, female, 37 years old, education worker, Yuzhny Sokol, November 2023).

Some of our informants do not insist on the truthfulness or ideological nature of their views and opinions, but rather refer to their 'upbringing', i.e. the baggage of their own socialisation.

'They say there was no patriotism in the 90s. There was patriotism, and we all had this… I don’t know. I was taught… For example, when the Russian anthem plays, I don’t know about you. Do you cry? But I get tears by themselves… I simply cannot react otherwise. Because I worked in the authorities, because the concept of subordination and order was instilled in me' (interview, female, 45 years old, civil servant, Cheremushkin, August 2023).

'Oh, I have very different emotions. Again, I am against the war, of course, yes. But I was raised in a military family. My father is an officer, my brother is an officer… So, again, that’s how I was brought up, my grandfather died in the war in the early days. My mom’s father. My other grandfather served on the border… So in my understanding, a man… it is his sacred duty to protect us, the Motherland and all that' (interview, female, 36 years old, occupation unknown, Krasnodar, October 2023).

An ethnographic trip to Buryatia allowed us to delve deeper into the phenomenon of performative patriotism during wartime, that is, a patriotism that arises from participation in collective action and through contact with material objects. We can speak of performative patriotism, for example, when in Buryatia, women whose relatives are at the front self-organise into volunteer movements to weave camouflage nets and sew uniforms for the military. During these activities, a sense of solidarity forms, which is interpreted as patriotic. It is often associated with the memory of Soviet society, not because our interlocutors see modern Russia as an ideological or political continuation of the Soviet project, but rather because the practice of volunteering refers to patterns of Soviet collectivism. For example, when our researcher, working side by side with volunteers in Ulan-Ude, asked if she could pour herself some coffee, one of them, Saina, replied: 'The coffee is there, help yourself! Everything here is brotherly, like in a communal apartment, like in the Soviet Union!' These same volunteers periodically joked about 'socialist competition' (ethnographic diary, Ulan-Ude, October 2023).

Although the overwhelming majority of our informants do not share the Kremlin's imperialist ideology, they repeatedly reproduced imperialist language. Some, for example, spoke of Ukraine as being part of the Russian Empire or the Soviet Union, or even Kyivan Rus, and some insisted on the inevitability of Russia’s imperial ambitions:

'For all this to end, the other side needs to acknowledge defeat, recognize our righteousness. We are fighting for our territories, for our cities. They need to say that it’s over, let’s start negotiations, and let it all be finished' (interview, female, 43 years old, museum worker, Cheremushkin, August 2023).

The ethnographic method allowed us to see that the Kremlin's imperialist thesis – that Russians and Ukrainians are one people—fails to be fully accepted by those who are not anti-war. Although they justify the 'special military operation', they often do not have the heart to call eastern Ukrainians or Donbas residents ‘Russians’ – they use the term ‘Russian-speaking'. During a debate on the legitimacy of the war between our researcher, her friend Tonya, an anti-war activist, and the war-justifiers Vitya and Artem, Vitya predictably accused Ukraine: 'Why have they been bullying the people since 2014?' he was indignant. – he was indignant. 'So it's their people', the researcher parried. 'It's kind of a Russian-speaking people', Artem supported his comrade, calling, as we see, the people of Ukraine 'Russian-speaking' rather than 'Russian' (ethnographic diary, Cheremushkin, September 2023).

Another informant from Krasnodar Krai contrasts his own patriotism with the Kremlin’s desire to redraw national borders but does not articulate any alternative idea of ‘critical patriotism’, referring to his own distance from politics.

I’m not a politician, not an economist… [But] I’m not a citizen of these territories, I can’t consider them mine—they are not mine. They are not my own, not by blood, not mine… If they were trying to take away my homeland—I would fight for it. There are people, and I understand those people, who consider it their own. And there are other people who think, ‘It was yours, now it is mine'. I don’t understand this. For me, it’s unclear—how is that? If you went to someone’s home now and said: ‘You leave, I will live here (interview, male, 41 years old, transportation worker, Krasnodar, October 2023).

It is important to note that even those who view Ukraine as an aggressive opponent of Russia do not say that Ukrainians are misguided Russians. On the contrary, they emphasise that Ukraine is not Russia; and perhaps that is why it poses a danger to Russia. For example, in a conversation with our researcher, Elena, the previously mentioned realtor from Krasnodar, emphasises: ‘For me, Russia is Russia, and Ukraine – I have relatives there, and even before the military operation started, they already hated us, they didn’t want to communicate with us, that’s a fact’ (ethnographic diary, Krasnodar, October 2023).

Regardless of whether Ukraine is perceived as an enemy or a victim, whether it evokes sympathy or aggression, most of our informants conceive of it as a separate, independent state. A worker in the education sector from the village of Udurg, who generally justifies the 'special military operation', still regards Ukrainian statehood ('authority') as a given:

What is this all about? Is it because some territories want to separate from them and join the Russian Federation? That’s what it’s all about, right? For them to join, Ukraine, the Ukrainian authorities would have to calmly agree to cede their territories to the Russian Federation. But I don’t think any authority would do that (interview, female, 38 years old, education worker, Udurg).

At a friendly gathering in Cheremushkin, one of the guests, nurse Zhanna, lamented that instead of 'victory', 'every month coffins arrive, and not just once a month'. According to her, the war is 'not about victory, it’s a human defeat; a Russian is killing a Russian'. However, Zhanna immediately corrected herself: 'Russia, well, withdraw all your troops completely, to see who is beating whom? Maybe they’re just fighting among themselves? This is their war among themselves'. Zhanna seems to suggest that the conflict between Kyiv and Donbas is not a conflict of the 'Russian world' with Ukraine, but an internal Ukrainian conflict that should not concern Russia. She ended her monologue with: 'Ukrainians are a separate people. Why are we fighting? Because Zelensky went mad? Why did Putin even get involved in defending?' (ethnographic diary, Cheremushkin, September 2023).

At the same time, the boundaries between nationalism and imperialism are fluid and blurred. One of our informants, a resident of Krasnodar Krai, recalls that from 2014 to 2022, her acquaintances saw Ukraine not just as a separate country, but as a distant one. However, after the start of the full-scale war, she disagrees with them and questions the immutability of national borders:

'Of course, we all know that [the war in Donbas] was not particularly publicised here; we always kept some distance. Well, it’s over there, in Ukraine. It’s somewhere over there. And where is ‘over there’? It’s right on our border. It’s right next to us. It’s like you stretch out your hand, and it’s already there' (interview, female, 59 years old, pensioner, Krasnodar).

Her interview is filled with imperialist rhetoric. 'Ukrainians', she says, 'they… They are not really a nation, as such, as a nationality, they are basically Cossacks. Right? It’s an ethnicity' (ibid).

By late autumn 2023, those who were not anti-war had become more critical of the 'special operation' but continued to emotionally justify the war. This justification is driven by the desire to restore Russia’s moral standing, which has been tarnished by violating norms of accepted morality through mass violence. However, neither criticism nor justification of the war made the majority of our informants strict political opponents or supporters of the war in the traditional sense. Most of them avoided political self-definition.

Both criticism and justification of the war among its non-opponents are often tied to the process of understanding and experiencing their identity and affiliation, as mentioned earlier. In their view, the war is bad because it harms Russia but is necessary to protect it. While discussing 'Russia', they use both the language of imperial space and the language of the national state existing within politically defined borders. At the same time, despite not taking a clear political stance, some of our informants are nonetheless sensitive to the question of political change: they dream of peace and, at times, even of democracy as a way to resolve conflicts effectively.