Since the invasion of Ukraine, many sociologists — despite objective difficulties — have tried to identify the dynamics of Russians’ attitudes to what is happening. Recently, based on the results of a series of surveys, a book by Vladimir Zvonovsky and Alexander Khodykin, “Russian Public Opinion in the Context of Military Conflict,” was published, covering the period from February 2022 to autumn 2023. The results of the research show that 21% do not support the invasion. And 76% do support it — but within this large group there is a serious division. Convinced supporters and convinced opponents, according to segmented surveys, made up only 19% each by 2023. And the rest are included in the “periphery of opponents” or the “periphery of supporters” of military action. T-invariant talked to one of the book’s authors, Doctor of Sociological Sciences Vladimir Zvonovsky, about how the data was collected, how the surveys were compiled, and what results were obtained.
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Vladimir Borisovich Zvonovsky is a Doctor of Sociological Sciences, professor, associate professor of the Department of Sociology and Psychology at the Samara State University of Economics. President of the Social Research Foundation.
T-invariant: What projects did you have before these reviews? Perhaps some patterns important for this book were traced in previous studies?
Vladimir Zvonovsky:We have an Association of Research Companies “Group 7/89”. It currently includes about 50 centers and organizations from different regions of the country. In addition, we have an educational direction, within the framework of which we conduct webinars, and we prepared one of them with Vladimir Ilyich Paniotto. He was a famous sociologist in the USSR, then headed the Kiev International Institute of Sociology. We wanted to invite him to talk about how measurements are currently being taken in Ukraine. Literally two weeks before February 24, we talked to him, and he said: “Volodya, let’s wait a little bit, because the situation is so uncertain.” I then replied that, on the one hand, I understand that such regimes always end in military conflicts. But on the other hand, I do not see such a turn of events in polls and tests. If you remember, when Crimea was annexed, VTsIOM and FOM conducted a huge all-Russian poll on March 14-16 — whether this should be done. Several tens of thousands of people were polled then. When something big happens in Russia, it is impossible to hide: the whole country knows what they are preparing for, what decision will be made. But that was not the case here. And I say to Vladimir Ilyich: “Well, on the other hand, I see that nothing is being done to prepare for the invasion.” As you can see, I was wrong.
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If I had known in advance, we would have, of course, conducted a survey, seen how people’s opinions would change. But since we started the survey on the second or third day, we still saw the dynamics. We saw that at first the support was quite high – 58%. Then it started to grow, and after about ten days this figure already exceeded 70%. And then it approached 80%.
Firstly, it was a process of growth, of spinning up the propaganda machine, when the “correct” version was brought to all the main social groups. Secondly, the criminalization of the anti-war position, the arrests of those who went out to protest, had an effect. If you do not support the “special operation”, then by definition you discredit the army and something else.
All this led to the fact that the pro-war position was very large. Subsequently, the number of supporters of the “SVO” gradually decreased. Our polls in July 2023 showed 71% versus 20% of people with an anti-war position.
At the end of 2021, the Levada Centersurvey, and then only 36% of Russians considered a conflict with Ukraine quite likely, 38% considered it “unlikely” and 15% completely ruled out such a possibility. That is, it was completely irrelevant to the agenda of the mass consciousness. Therefore, answering your question, I will say: no, we did not see anything like that, we did not know, and no one knew. The mass consciousness did not see this and was not prepared for it. It was adapted to this decision after the fact. The Security Council at maximum – that’s how it was.
Book by Vladimir Zvonovsky and Alexander Khodykin. Photo: https://bukinist.de/
T-i: All these years, starting with the annexation of Crimea, polls were conducted that showed whether Russians considered Ukraine their enemy. There were few positive responses. That is, it was not like people were waiting for military action for years.
VZ: Of course, they weren’t! Neither in Russia nor in Ukraine. This is actually shown in the book. Ukraine had a more or less stable, good attitude towards both Russia and the Russians. And towards Putin, by the way, too, at least until 2014. If we talk about Russia, then the attitude was very dependent on propaganda. If Ukraine was talked about more often in the official narrative, it got worse. Something else happened – it got worse again, but then it always quickly recovered. It was worth not talking about Ukraine – and that’s it, the attitude towards it steadily improved. The same is true for support for the “SVO”: the peaks occurred on the anniversary of the beginning and the minimum successes of the RF Armed Forces, which propaganda naturally widely covered, and we cite this in the book. Mobilization (as well as the very beginning of the “SVO”) became the minimum point.
T-i: From the results of your surveys, it follows that there are quite a lot of people who do not take a clear anti-war or pro-war position, but repeat the government’s narrative. It turns out that as soon as the fighting ends and the government changes, they will also repeat the opinion of the new government?
VZ: I would still switch the order: that the government will change and the fighting will end. And this will already be critical. The change of power is a very important element. I would even say that for a very large number of Russians it is more important. I cannot say “for everyone”, but for the majority everything will be decided by “switching off”, like: “That’s it, we’re done.” Those who are on the far periphery of supporters (35%) are more numerous than those who firmly support the invasion (19%), and the share of the latter is decreasing. That is, shades change more than clear positions. And the distant periphery is very heterogeneous: there are those who are opposed to the government, and those who support it, but they choose a pro-war position either for security reasons or to support “their own.” That is, “SVO” is perceived as an operation that has begun and can be completed, and then everything will return to normal in the minds of Russians. Trips to Europe should resume, Visa and Mastercard cards should be earned, car and fashion brands should return, and so on.
For most people, this is how it is: there is nothing to which you need to adapt anew, you just need to return to the previous situation. Yes, there are fewer and fewer such people, but they are still the majority. When people are asked the question “If you had the opportunity to go back in time and cancel the start of the military operation,” the numbers are different: in May 2024, only 54% would not reconsider this decision, and 34% would cancel the start of “SVO.” We see that this is such a “backup” point.
T-i: That is, people want a “backup” not even to the pre-Covid period, but at least to the pre-war period?
VZ: Yes. The Putin period convinced people that there was a “golden age” in the life of this country and all we need is to simply return to that time. We may be wrong about whether it was in 1966, 1976, 1986 or 2006, but it was definitely in the past. Therefore, the word “we will return” is mandatory for this myth. This is the fundamental behavior of the current elite, starting with the commander-in-chief, and it has been actively introduced into the mass consciousness. This is the basis for predicting the future: it will be better because we will return to the past. At the same time, according to our surveys, people are more optimistic about theirits financial situation compared to the beginning of military actions. At first, there were very bad forecasts regarding the economy, which did not come true, and the population’s demands decreased. So we got this result: the share of those who believe that they are doing well increased from 16% to 25%.
T-i: Is this related to the fact that there was practically no image of the future in this propaganda narrative?
VZ:Of course. If there were an image of the future, it would have to be talked about, it would have to be somehow arranged there. And the propaganda narrative is precisely that there is no need to arrange anything – let’s just go back to what was. This nostalgia for the USSR can also be seen among the supporters of the “SVO”.
T-i: You said that the anti-war position is criminalized. What is the likelihood that people will keep silent about something in a survey? And how can we ensure that they tell the truth to strangers?
VZ: Firstly, if we simply ask point-blank: “Are you for or against a special operation?”, 20% of us, complete strangers (and that’s almost 20 million adult Russians) will openly say: “Yes, I’m against it.” Therefore, when they say that people are afraid of something, I always remind them that 20% are not afraid. Secondly, we use methods that allow people to feel safer, and for this we look for some other formulations.
And besides, it is not like we come or call, and a person tells us something different from his position, then hangs up and says: “Damn, how great: they just called me, and I lied.” There is no “guerrilla squad.” It’s just that in most cases a person does not have his own position. The way he told us, he will tell anyone else the same way.
That propaganda puts pressure – yes, of course. But it puts pressure not only when we poll, it puts pressure in all other situations too. And a person comes to the elections — it puts pressure, both in everyday communication and in other cases.
I can’t speak for all countries, but in the US, and in Russia 15-20 years ago, it worked like this: there are different points of view, and they have political support. There are politicians who verbalize them, pronounce these words. Here is an anti-war point of view, someone pronounces it, and people say: “Yes, this candidate is closer to me,” and support this person. An ordinary voter cannot join a non-existent point of view. And now, in fact, this anti-war narrative does not exist. This, by the way, is a serious problem. No one says: “Military actions are a problem. Let’s solve it in such-and-such a way.” After all, what is the task of the opposition, especially the anti-war one? To split the majority. It is necessary to find such formulations that would do this. And this is what all the segmentations are for. To understand what the majority consists of, what slogans regarding the military or anti-war position they like and what they don’t, what slogans they will follow and what they won’t.
Everything is more or less normal with sociologists, moreover, several new polling companies have appeared. And the number of politicians has decreased. And what will sociologists measure? They should ask in the survey: “There is this point of view, and there is that point of view, which one are you for?” Voters answer: “We support a hypothetical Nadezhdin, but we do not support Putin.” Or vice versa, when the prospect of voting for Nadezhdin as an anti-war candidate appeared, 20% of respondents voted for him. But he disappeared – that’s it, he is gone, and there is no more support. These are interconnected things. You can’t take the political component out of a survey and then say: “Why are our people so unsupportive of peace?” There is no one who could express this support, which is why there is so little support for peace. If there are such convincing politicians, there will be a significant anti-war voter base.
Sociologist Vladimir Zvonovsky gives a lecture. Photo: https://te-st.org
Of course, there is a highly moral position. There are people who say that war is bad by definition. But, pardon me, how many people share a highly moral position in principle? I don’t know, there can be 15 percent of those in any society who are both “for” and “against”. And everything else is quite rational, I would even say, commercialized. And there is also a widespread myth that Russian society is very religious and stands on moral foundations. This is not true at all, it is very commercialized, individualistic and completely anti-religious. Absolutely. If we listen to, I don’t know, any priest, starting with the main one, they will not derive their position from the Holy Scripture, they will build it from what they heard on TV.
T-i: It turns out that the anti-war position is largely built not on the political, but on the moral aspect, because people have some kind of reference points (for example, people whom they consider authorities)?
VZ:This does not always coincide. There are people who are anti-war, who proceed from a moral position: war is bad. There are people who are against the invasion for political reasons: “We must stick to Europe, Europe is our home, we are oriented there. Our entire culture is based on European books, no one reads Eastern literature.” This is a cultural and political position. Some people proceed from military considerations: “What are we doing here, why do we need all this?” The anti-war position is complex. And the pro-war position, by the way, is also complex: there is also a kind of moral approach: “The people of Donbass are against the Kyiv government, we came to support them.” Yes, they can be criticized, but they proceed from their own moral position: “There are people there, we must treat them somehow.” And there are those who believe that the state border simply needs to be straightened, because it is too long and difficult to defend. This is also a military and political approach, complex in the sense that it consists of different pieces. But the moralizing position is extremely marginal in Russia – on both sides.
T-i:Do people mention their loved ones in surveys? Is it possible to understand how much their environment influences people’s opinions?
VZ:This is the case when I would refrain from saying: “The environment influences, and the person joins.” In recent years, we have been saying that a person simply lives in his own information bubble and forms this bubble. He listens and reads only what he considers necessary for himself, and creates an environment around himself. On the other hand, to a large extent (at least, I think, to a very large extent) the topic of conflict is not discussed in everyday conversation. Yes, you can “hack” with someone, discussing it. But discussing issues of war and peace now is something that can threaten loved ones, and according to propaganda, the state in general. People often try to avoid discussing or talking about this topic. And this is also an indicator of how sincere the support for a particular position is. On the other hand, we see that if earlier the environment of both the supporters of the “special operation” and its opponents was more homogeneous, then since the mobilization this homogeneity has greatly decreased. People more often meet supporters of the opposite point of view in their environment, that is, they still, if not discuss, then get acquainted with an alternative position.
It is difficult to say whether this is the result of some expansion of the circle of communication (which I personally doubt very much), or people simply began to reassess their circumstances. In one situation, they support the “SVO”, and in another (for example, with other news from the front or new data on the dead) they will change their point of view. The case of mobilization and the case of nominating anti-war candidates in the presidential elections (which did not take place, but there was an attempt) showed this very well. As soon as any opportunity arises, the number of opponents of the special operation and the share of those in whose circle there is an opposing point of view immediately increases.
T-i: Is it possible to understand how much society is atomized, on the one hand, and how ready it is to unite, on the other?
VZ: Society is atomized, and the atomization is not decreasing. And I would not interpret events like mobilization or presidential elections as people uniting. If they united, there would be other effects, but they are simply taking advantage of the opportunities that have opened up. At the time of mobilization, there was a reason to speak out more openly on the topic of “SVO” – take it, we will speak out! There was an opportunity to speak out on this topic with some new candidates – take it, sign here. This opportunity disappeared – that’s it, we do not see such statements. This plasticity, of course, is a direct consequence of atomization. The emergence of such moments in itself does not lead to irreversible effects. Therefore, when they say now: “Oh, you know, the Kremlin will never go for a second wave of mobilization,” I don’t know. I admit that this could happen. Yes, the regime may be afraid, but I am not sure that there will be a long-term effect.No partisans or underground parties will appear. Some people will emigrate, others will hide in the concrete jungles of megacities.
T-i: Is it possible to track the attitude not to the military actions as such, but to the authorities through such surveys? In fact, criticism of the authorities comes from both sides, and at such moments it finds an outlet.
VZ: I am not sure that in this case it is necessary to somehow strictly link the attitude to the authorities and the attitude to the special operation. They can diverge significantly, although, of course, the correlation is high. And, in fact, this ensures support for the “SVO”. That is, people who support Putin say: “Well, he made the right decision.” And why he made the decision, they can’t really explain. This is noticed by everyone who deals with this issue.
That is, literally the next question – “Why do you support?” – turns into the answer: “I am not interested in politics, I completely trust Putin, and what he does there is his business.” Here, as it were, there is a abdication of responsibility. And this action in itself is, of course, the result of a well-thought-out, long-term state policy.
T-i: You have a sample. How do you draw conclusions based on this sample? Will you risk extending these conclusions to the entire population of the Russian Federation?
VZ: The sample can be representative, it can be non-representative. Representative is one that reflects the structure of the general population (in this case, Russia, the Russian population). If our sample is representative, and we show that it is, then we can generalize the results to the entire population. Where could there be pitfalls? According to our findings, which we reflected in the book, as a result of mobilization and emigration, we lost a significant part of the young population, primarily men. But we do not know whether we lost it only in the survey part, or as residents of the country as well. Apparently, the second option. Someone left, someone died, someone is hiding. And there are different estimates that still show that this is some significant number, and our sample captures this, shows that this group has shrunk. We were able to measure the process that should be taking place among the general population. This means that we are studying some real state of affairs, real changes.
The question is broader – do we even have reliable data on the structure of the general population? How many men do we have there, how many young men, how many people with such and such an education, how many live, for example, in the Belgorod region, how many have left it? I’m not so sure about that. We all know how disgusting, for example, the data on migration in the Russian Federation are – everything is so poorly organized. We know how poorly the 2020 census was conducted, which took place in 2021. We do not have a very reliable basis for constructing a hypothesis about how much of our total population we have, about the general population itself. Simply put, the error in our measurement may be less than the errors in our knowledge of the population of Russia as a whole. And this is one source of errors.
The second source is that we may ask questions incorrectly. We asked too tough a question, and accordingly, we received one distribution. What to do in this case? Modify the questions. First we ask them one way, then another, and so on, and different companies ask them differently. The book shows that no matter how we formulate the questions, the dynamics of the answers to them are approximately the same for everyone. In the course of measurements and mass surveys, we get, in general, a more or less clear picture. Yes, we can formulate the question differently, we can have a different level of support, instead of a telephone survey, as we do, for example, we can conduct a face-to-face survey, as, for example, the Levada Center does. Or even conduct an online survey, as our foreign colleagues do. But the dynamics will still be the same. We will not see any other processes there. We have serious problems in reaching different social groups and with the formulation of questions, but for now these problems are being solved during surveys. So far we have not missed a single significant social process capable of changing the situation in the country and in public opinion.
T-i: The surveys have a gradation by age, and among young people there are more who are either against military action or are on the periphery of the world. If the outflow of population continues, is this group decreasing?
VZ: I have been conducting surveys for a long time, and since the 1990s we have been saying that supporters of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation will sooner or later die out, but they are not dying out! In every election there are those who vote for the Communist Party, sometimes even for two Communist Parties. I think it’s about the same here. There are some processes that generate such behavior anyway. It’s not related to practical activities, to the everyday life of certain people. It’s a process that is generated by the logic of history. Let me give you an example. In one of the first waves of the survey, we asked if you had any boys of draft age.
If such a boy was 20-30 years old, then support for the “special operation” was about average. But if the boy was 11-15 years old, we observed a strong rejection, just very high. The most anti-war position is generated in this layer, right in childhood. When such a boy enters adulthood, and we start to question him, it turns out that he has the most anti-war position.
Perhaps for this reason, the propaganda efforts of the current government are so strongly aimed not even at universities, but at schools. Another reason is that there are no professional political managers in schools. It is not very possible to communicate with children there even on educational issues, let alone on political ones. And you can’t generate these loyal people quickly, this is a serious problem for them. If the government is interested in its supporters entering adulthood, of course, it should work with schoolchildren. And there is no one to work there. There are other reasons for such a shift in young people. In schools, they are taught universal principles of the structure of nature and society. Yes, there is a story with Medinsky’s textbooks, but there is not even a conditionally “spiritual” textbook on economics. Children are taught that life is organized roughly the same all over the world, which means that the people who live there are roughly the same.
War propaganda in Russian schools. Photo: https://censor.net/
T-i: So, in a few years we will be able to see how well it all works or doesn’t work?
VZ: We are trying. All our activities consist of tracking dependencies between different factors, including time ones. Let’s say mobilization begins, and support for the “special operation” should decrease. We would like to test some of our hypotheses. I see it in my circle and the circle of my children: a person finishes school or college and leaves (especially young men). Despite the fact that parents are intimidated, scared by all sorts of FSB and so on – they take and leave. But still, the younger generation, even the remaining part of it, will be more opposed to the “special operation”. If we are talking about trends, I think that everything is pretty clear. And I will not undertake to predict any specific figures.
Text: Anna Grebennikova
Анна Гребенникова 20.08.2024