Earlier today, a Russian official said air defences had thwarted a drone attack on the Slavneft-YANOS oil refinery in the city of Yaroslavl. On one hand, it’s affected everyone – psychologically, economically, and in many other ways. And on the other hand, I understand that we could be hurt if we did something to try and change it. People are arrested for even walking around the area where a protest was scheduled. Now, I’m very encouraged by the fact that the world understands that the Russian people did not choose this war, that instead it was started by a president who lives in some absurd reality of his own.
[Russian President Vladimir] Putin is just another man who has been in power too long. One person shouldn’t be in power for a long time, all this power twists and corrupts people. It was the same in 2014, with his decision to annex Crimea. One woman is not certain what to make of the news, although she is generally against the war. "It's politicians trying to sort things out between themselves and ordinary people who are suffering. It won't do any good for my family."
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The influence is so strong that nowadays, it's often hard to hear the Ukrainian language being spoken on the streets of eastern Ukraine. And at the time of the Soviet Union many ethnic Russians were moved from Russia into Ukraine to promote Russian language and culture there. Let me - someone who was born and brought up in Ukraine - give you a sense of how people in Ukraine see the situation.
In his first major speech on defence, Grant Shapps said the country was moving from a "post war to a pre-war world". But be we warriors or wimps, now is the time to start facing up to the prospect, says Ed Arnold, a European Security Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute. If we took casualties at the rate the Ukrainians are taking them, the NHS would immediately be overwhelmed, and for years we’ve missed recruitment targets for the Armed Forces. “We have become so comfortable here in Britain that it’s hard to imagine young people fighting, and when I went to Afghanistan a decade ago, I didn’t think the youngsters of would be up to much,” he said. The logistics of training a “Citizen Army” are also formidable, according to one former Territorial Army (TA) soldier. “If you are talking about mass mobilisation to defend the homeland, that is hundreds of thousands of people,” he said.
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While the defence alliance, Nato, and the US warn of an imminent invasion, many people are still unconvinced that war will happen or that it would be to Russia's advantage. But 66 percent of Russians aged between 18 and 24 have a positive or very positive attitude toward Ukraine. That’s despite a backdrop of unceasing vitriol directed toward Ukraine on state television, and the persistent, oft-repeated idea that it is external attacks that require Russia to take defensive measures. Russia-based research outfits such as the Levada Center have been able to maintain some independence, but face higher rates of non-response.
- It’s hard to differentiate global problems from everyday ones, as you can see.
- Meanwhile, Moscow has claimed its forces have taken control of the village of Tabaivka in Ukraine's northeastern Kharkiv region.
- A bus service has started up connecting the city to the local cemetery where growing numbers of soldiers killed in Ukraine are being buried.
- It seemed to me that all this was not real and could not last long.
The conflict in Ukraine offers a glimpse of how Britain might prepare for self-defence. Checkpoints and pillboxes would be built at motorway junctions and city entrances. Public buildings and metro stations would be used as air raid shelters, while anti-aircraft guns might be hidden in parks. After an uneasy peace with Ukraine, Moscow has sent forces into the Baltics, clashing with British troops based there to protect Nato’s eastern flank. Russian air defences have prevented a drone attack on an oil refinery in the city of Yaroslavl, northeast of Moscow, the regional governor has said. The Russian president has intensified a crackdown on opposition since the start of his invasion of Ukraine, and this has ramped up further as the elections have approached.
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People get used even to war, especially if they live far from the battleground. “Since https://euronewstop.co.uk/what-happens-if-russia-loses-to-ukraine.html lived in Russia, the war affected us quite a lot. My mother and I were very afraid for our lives, so the decision was made to leave. At the same time, there have been cases of pro-war pupils recording their teachers making dovish statements in class, and reporting them to the authorities. It is in a fight for its survival and understands what Russia will do if it stops. More European nations are now talking about the need to step up aid in light of concerns that the US is weakening in its resolve.
- Across the country and across all ages, a majority of Ukrainians say they are not “one people” with Russians and that the two countries should not be one.
- These are mostly people around my age with the same level of education.
- If they are troubled by Russia bombing a city where many have friends and relatives, then they're trying not to show it.
- Right now though, Russian people are not free to express their opinions anyway, with a new law in place making it a criminal offence to say anything about the Ukraine conflict which the authorities consider untrue.
- We really want to help, but we haven’t been able to solve problems even in our own country, and now requests are flying around that we stop the war in another country.
Just as there was the “Clap for Carers” during the pandemic, similar rituals might take place for those serving at the front. And for every shirker or draft-dodger, others might take pride in national duty, be it manning a machine gun post or cleaning the streets. Military kit also needs boots on the ground to operate it – hence Sir Patrick’s call for a “Citizen Army” to boost the regular Armed Forces. Whether people would be flocking into recruitment offices is open to question.
- Sociologists and pollsters have tried to gauge opinion, but there is no freedom of speech or information in Russia so it is impossible to tell if people are being honest.
- While Covid was a useful exercise in Armageddon planning, 21st-century Britain is arguably less ready for actual warfare than it was even 30 years ago.
- Al Jazeera spoke with five young Russians about their views on the invasion, and how the blowback has affected them.
- Cuts have already seen the size of the British Army fall from more than 100,000 in 2010 to around 73,000 now.
Putin’s total control of the Russian media mobilized anti-Ukrainian hysteria among Russians in the decade leading up to the Kremlin’s 2014 aggression. “It speaks to the view that, should Ukraine become a NATO member, and should NATO forces be deployed on Russia’s doorstep, that would constitute an existential threat and therefore cannot be allowed,” Pozner told CNN by email. But the poll also found that more Russians think it would be wrong than right to use military force “to reunite Russia and Ukraine” – two countries with a long and complicated history of being intertwined. Koneva also studied how public opinion shifted after Moscow announced a mobilization campaign in September 2022 that resulted in the conscription of certain people.
- Koneva said that in June 2023, respondents were asked to send "virtual telegrams to ordinary Ukrainian citizens."
- Positive Russian attitudes toward Ukraine once again dramatically collapsed during the Euromaidan, which was portrayed in massive state-sponsored information campaigns as a Western-backed coup bringing Russophobes and fascists to power.
- European countries have largely outsourced much of their military capacity and thinking on strategy and security to the States through NATO.
- And for every shirker or draft-dodger, others might take pride in national duty, be it manning a machine gun post or cleaning the streets.
Balazs Orban, chief political aide to the prime minister, said Hungary sent a proposal to the EU over the weekend showing it was open to using the budget for the aid package if other "caveats" were added. And we have the specter of pro-Russian forces in eastern Ukraine stoking separatist feelings there. It began in February when we saw huge protests in the capital Kiev, against the pro-Russian President, Viktor Yanukovych, who eventually fled to Russia, but not before his security forces had killed many protesters. One of my friends is against our government while her grandmother supports them, and I know that’s caused a quarrel between them. I don’t support that view, but I do think we need some changes.
