Peace and War

Some things matter in war — one of buy-in, even in closed societies like Russia. When the population starts to doubt, the government may run out of runway, especially when the conflict is not survival. Russia is not under threat by Ukraine, at least not in the military sense.

So this polling from the Levada Center is of interest. The usual warning about polling in closed societies applies. But the reality is that we are starting to see more questions:

The number of supporters of peace talks in Russia has reached 61% — the highest since 2022. The number of opponents of the peace deal has fallen by half

A record increase in pacifist sentiments was recorded by the Levada Center based on the results of surveys at the end of April , MO noted

📌In September 2022, a minority of citizens, 48%, supported peace talks with varying degrees of conviction, while 44% were against. Three years later, the total number of supporters of a peace deal (mostly for and definitely for) increased by a quarter to 61%. While the share of opponents fell by one and a half times — to 30%.

📌Thus, there are now half as many people in favor of ending the war as in favor of continuing it . The gap between the two categories has widened sharply over the past month: according to the March poll, the ratio was 58% to 34%.

📌The number of convinced supporters of the deal has also grown by 3% over the month. Their number has almost doubled compared to two years ago , in May 2023. Since then, the…