RUSSIA Russians in the Caucasus hope the war in Ukraine will end

A survey on Internet searches reveals that the region’s inhabitants are less afraid of military mobilization. Expectations are growing for Vladimir Putin to step out of the picture. There is no longer any hesitation in using the term “war” to refer to the special operation. Criticism of the Moscow regime loaded with irony.

Moscow () – Today people are less afraid of mobilization compared to last autumn; he increasingly expects Vladimir Putin to step out of the picture; and it no longer has any qualms about using the term “war” to refer to the special operation in Ukraine, and the expectation for the end of the conflict is also growing. In general, latent disapproval of the Kremlin’s policies is growing, to the point that some observers say that a “pre-revolutionary” situation is taking shape.

These are three conclusions, which contrast with the propaganda and official information, from a survey carried out by the website Kavkaz.Realii on the issues that concern the population of the Russian Caucasus because of the war in Ukraine. To avoid the ambiguities of traditional polls, which no one trusts anymore to express their true thoughts, Yandex-Metrika, a tool available to everyone, was used to analyze the most popular topics among the inhabitants of the two federal districts. of the area, based on what circulates on the Internet and social networks.

The use of the term “war” can be subject to administrative and even criminal sanctions, but the search on the topic “news from the war in Ukraine” showed the word banned 54 thousand times in the South Caucasus (the Rostov Caucasus and Crimea ), and 16 thousand times in the North Caucasus (Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia). The area where the war is most intensely and freely discussed is the Republic of Karačaj-Cherkessia, with more than 1,000 searches per month, and also in the Volgograd region (Stalingrad), with 11,000, for a much larger population.

The official definition of a “special operation” remains limited to official and public statements, while the population knows perfectly well that it is a full-fledged war, no matter how much one is for or against it. The well-known sociologist Nikolai Mitrokhin, who emigrated to Germany, confirmed that “people are not fooled by propaganda, even if they are afraid to speak freely.” In any case, even the regular Levada-Centr polls underline that support for the war continues to decline.

Another sociologist who remained in Russia, Iskander Jasaveev, confirmed that the population “is not assimilating the new language of power”, everyone understands the reality of what is happening, and criticism of official policy is widespread, both in the sense of war radicalism as in that of pacifism and the desire for the conflict to end, in various forms. From the expressions in the networks it is clear “the fed up with the negativity of the whole matter, you can no longer see the news and the transmissions of the state media, which always repeat the same thing.”

Advice on “how to escape mobilization”, widely circulated a few months ago, is dwindling, with only a few dozen now to be found, although “how to volunteer” is still a hot topic. The most popular phrase is “when will the war end” (62,000 times), but the question “when will Putin die” is increasingly being asked. In Chechnya, this question is of less interest, but thousands of people are looking for the answer to “when will Kadyrov die?” According to sociologist Margarita Zavadskaya, these inquiries “usually go to fortune tellers and shamans.”

In general, the survey reveals the great discomfort of the Russian-Caucasian population (which to a large extent reflects the entire Federation) to accept reality. Questions are posed to which there is no answer, because the official one sounds clearly false. They try to spread glimmers of hope, even using “black humor jokes”, very traditional in the Caucasus, as Zavadskaja explained. In Soviet times, “Radio Yerevan” was very popular, a semi-official way of ironically broadcasting criticism of the totalitarian regime, making it clear that fear does not erase people’s consciousness.