The half-hearted support of the people of Russia for Vladimir Putin – Le Monde

There is the one who has promised himself never to read the news again and who ignores everything. The one who hurries on and pulls her scarf up over her nose. Those who are satisfied with a grunt, or a word as pithy as it is prudent: “I am for peace”, “I am with Putin”…

Trying to obtain the reactions of Muscovites after the sensational initiative of their president in the Ukrainian file, Monday, February 21, is not only to face a capital in a hurry, it is also to touch the deepest of Russian political realities: the great indifference and popular mistrust for everything that affects the public sphere, even on these international subjects which are ubiquitous on television, even for this Ukraine which Vladimir Putin constantly explains is “more than a neighbor”.

All the same, there is a tendency, a mood: support without much enthusiasm for the action of Vladimir Putin, whom the West would have put up against the wall. This is, for example, what Valentin Nekrassov, a 57-year-old pensioner, says: “It would be better if we could stay friends with the Ukrainians, but we have no choice. The president had to make a difficult decision, that of liberating Donbass himself…”

Tired of the climate of confrontation

This decision to recognize the separatist republics as territories “independent”escalation which is accompanied by an obvious risk of war, Lioubov Blagouchina, 44, accountant, supports it with lip service: “With the blocked Minsk agreements, the diplomatic initiative and the lack of good will on the Ukrainian side, the risk of war is there anyway. But it is also Putin’s responsibility to have widened the gap with Ukraine since 2014.”

The polls on this last presidential initiative are lacking, but, at the beginning of 2021, around 50% of Russians supported such recognition or an attachment of the two entities to Russia, against 25% advocating their return to Ukrainian fold. On the other hand, only 17% of Russians believe that Russia and Ukraine should form a single state.

Other, older studies show a certain fatigue in the face of the climate of confrontation constantly maintained in the country. If, in 2014, according to the independent analytical center Levada, 26% of respondents assured that “Russia is surrounded by enemies on all sides”only 16% think so in 2020. The fear of war, at the same time, has risen to second place among Russians’ concerns.

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