Dazed and deluded:
Putin launches invasion of Ukraine
Russian society reels 
Most Russians are keeping their opinions to themselves after the invasion of Ukraine. This article has been republished from RFE/RL.
by Robert Coalson
Feb 25, 2022 


Russians awoke on the morning of February 24, like the rest of the world, to news that their country had invaded Ukraine, a neighbouring country to which millions of Russians have close personal ties.

The developments came after months of military build-up during which Russian society largely maintained a silence driven by disbelief and edged with fear of reprisals from President Vladimir Putin’s government, which has intensified its clampdown on dissent and civil society over the past year.

“I am against any war, particularly with Ukraine,” one man in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don told Current Time on February 24 when asked about Putin’s decision. “I can’t judge because I wasn’t there, but they should have done everything possible to maintain the peace.”

A woman in the same city said she “views war negatively in general.”

“But since they have forced us, I think our president is doing everything correctly,” she added, before turning to the journalist and adding: “Is that what you wanted to hear?” 
A retired woman in the city of Cheboksary, the capital of the Chuvashia region on the Volga River, told RFE/RL’s Idel.Realities: “We are very sad. It is really frightening. We feel sorry for everyone.”

Another Chuvash woman said she was “against war” and criticized Putin’s government, which had repeatedly said Moscow had no plans to invade Ukraine and had mocked the United States for warning that Russia was planning a large-scale attack.
“They sit around and make decisions, but our boys have to go off to fight,” she said. “They talked and talked and promised and promised that there would be no war. Now there is only disappointment.”

Both women declined to give their names.

Shortly before the invasion began, sociologist Aleksei Levinson of the independent Levada Center polling agency told Current Time that public opinion in Russia was dominated by a “fear of war” that nonetheless did not rise to the level of “anti-war sentiment.” (Current Time is the Russian-language network run by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA.)

“We are not seeing public manifestations of anti-war sentiment in Russia,” he said. “There aren’t really demonstrations or anything like that. There are individual statements on social media, but they are coming primarily from those social groups you’d expect to see them from — the liberal intelligentsia on Facebook and so on.”

He added that many Russians were convinced a war against Ukraine would be brief and not involve large numbers of casualties.

“They aren’t afraid of a war because they think it will not be fought on Russian territory,” he said. “So far, they are not thinking [the war on Ukraine] will be accompanied by massive losses.”

An opinion poll by the state-connected All-Russia Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM) released on February 23 found that three-quarters of Russians supported Putin’s decision to recognize the separatist entities in parts of eastern Ukraine, while nearly four-fifths backed his decision to sign cooperation agreements with them — both steps that were milestones on the road to war.

Nonetheless, on February 24, small demonstrations against the war took place in cities across Russia.

“I came out today because I don’t want to be part of an aggressor country,” Dmitry Grunin, a member of the Omsk Civic Union, told RFE/RL’s Siberia. Realities at a demonstration in his Siberian home city. “I want to live in a normal country, one that is peaceful and oriented toward the future.”

In Saratov, lawyer Denis Rudenko stood alone amid the snowdrifts holding a sign reading: “Putin is a war criminal.”

Moscow-based journalist and activist Marina Litvinovich issued a call for mass protests across Russia in the evening, trying to muster enthusiasm for “Russians against the war.”

“I know that now many of you are experiencing feelings of despair and helplessness over Vladimir Putin’s attack against a people that is friendly toward us,” she said in a video statement. “But I call on you not to despair and urge you tonight, at 7 p.m., to come out onto the main squares of your city to clearly state that we, the people of Russia, are against this war that Putin has created…. Don’t be afraid.”

It was one of the few calls for mass protests that have been heard in Russia, even as the country proceeded toward this turn of events for several months. Shortly after she posted the video, Litvinovich was detained by police outside her home.

In an interview with Russia-focused media outlet Meduza, Levada Center Director Denis Volkov said the Kremlin has skilfully convinced many Russians that the conflict at the heart of Russian aggression against Ukraine was not between Russia and Ukraine but between Russia and the United States.

“America is to blame for everything,” he said, paraphrasing a narrative that has been laid out by officials and state media. “It isn’t even Ukraine, but America and the West. They are pushing Ukraine, which is plotting something against [the Russia-backed separatists], and Russia has to come to their aid because they are Russian-speakers and, in a nutshell, ‘our’ people.”

A CNN poll released on February 23 found that 50 percent of Russians agreed it would be acceptable to use military force in Ukraine “to prevent Kyiv from joining” NATO, while just 25 percent said it would be wrong.

In addition, Russian civil society is far different from what it was in 2008, when Russia fought a brief war with Georgia or in 2014 when Moscow seized the Ukrainian region of Crimea and fomented the separatist war in parts of eastern Ukraine. In 2014, tens of thousands of Russians took to the streets in major demonstrations in March and September against Moscow’s aggression against Ukraine.

Those protests were led by charismatic opposition leaders such as Boris Nemtsov — who was shot dead outside the Kremlin in February 2015 — and Aleksei Navalny, who was arrested in January 2021 after recovering from an assassination attempt the previous year and who is now serving a 2½-year prison sentence on charges his supporters say were politically motivated.

In addition, independent media outlets and civic organizations have been cowed or shuttered under Russia’s draconian “foreign agent” and “undesirable organization” laws. Individual activists and journalists — many of them targeted by dubious criminal investigations — have been intimidated or driven to leave the country.

Analysts have noted that Russian search engines now ignore the reporting of media outlets that have been targeted by the government. On February 24, the state media-monitoring agency Roskomnadzor ordered Russian media covering the war to report “only information and facts received from official Russian sources” under threat of being fined or blocked.
“For the Russian people, any form of anti-war rhetoric right now means to risk, at the very least, losing your job,” Moscow-based journalist Kirill Martynov told Current Time before the invasion. “Worse, it could mean risking your freedom or your life.”

“At present, there is not a critical mass of people in Russian society who would be willing to risk that,” he concluded.

Russian political analyst Fyodor Krashennikov told RFE/RL’s NorthRealities that it is wrong to argue that Russians do not protest enough without taking into consideration the “terror” that dominates in Putin’s Russia.

“It is completely logical that people don’t want to go out and protest,” he said. “[I]n Belarus, brave and respectable people also don’t protest anymore for the same reason. To deny the effect of terror and blame people who are in such a situation is a betrayal, in my opinion.”

On social media, many liberal Russians have been sharing their angst. “It is too late to put up flyers and too late for one-person pickets,” wrote Moscow-based journalist Varya Gornostayeva. “Our country must save itself, defend itself from this madman who will bury us all under rubble. And we must defend Ukraine, where our friends, relatives, and people who we have never considered enemies are living. We have one enemy — Putin.”

“We, Russians, Russia will never wash away this shame,” wrote Moscow-based activist Valery Solovei. “This fateful decision has been made in accordance with our silent lack of resistance.”

Copyright (c)2020 RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.

Robert CoalsonRobert Coalson is a senior correspondent for RFE/RL who covers Russia, the Balkans, and Eastern Europe. More by Robert Coalson

18 Air Travel Tips
from Mark J. Stoddard
My first flight was as a child returning with my family from an Air Force tour of duty in Germany. The plane was a TWA Constellation propellor plane. Since then my wife Elizabeth and my brother Eric have garnered too many seat callous and taken more than 30,000 friends as passengers on our cruises and tours in the USSR, Russia, Ukraine, China, all over the Pacific rim and islands, Australia/New Zealand, Central and South America, so many African and Middle East countries, India and "IndoChina" as well as Europe. So...we ought to share our findings on how to enjoy or survive flying on today's airlines.

1. Bring your own water bottle or travel stein/mug of 24-32 oz size with its own straw or have your own straw. The airlines will fill it with water for you.
2. If you’d like a bit of extra taste, no to low calorie powdered flavor packets are widely available and inexpensive. Many have just the low cal powder with vitamins and others add extra energy items like caffeine. The later is not recommended on sleeping flights!
3. Don’t drink alcohol or soft drinks on the flight. You’ll dehydrate fast.
4. Be careful of purchased water that it is sodium free. Women in particular will swell up from the extra sodium.
5. Avoid ice. The ice bucket is often left out and new ice added. The bucket can, in theory, collect unwanted microbes. Besides, ice makes the water colder and can keep you from get fully hydrated.
6. Leave the airflow vent open the entire trip although point it away from you once you’ve got the temperature right. Leaving it open encourages necessary airflow to keep exchanging fresh air for the yuck we spew into the plane’s enclosed, highly populated atmosphere.
7. Bring your own blanket if needed. Scarfs are great too. The airline blankets may be laundered, but then again, maybe somebody just used it and neatly put it back.
8. Neck pillows of foam and cloth are great. Easy to carry with you. Airline pillows should be abbreviated to “airline pills”. Too small and often unavailable. Inflatable pillows may have problems with differing altitudes.
9. On long flights the back rows are usually the last seats given out and people avoid them. They can be a GREAT place to have a few empty seats next to you. I’ve often stretched out on 4 middle seats on the backrow.
10. Be sure whatever seat you get has the maximum allowed recline. Any seats in front of a bulkhead or an emergency row rarely recline at all.
11. On long flights that offer food, check to see if the menu offers what you can eat. So many people are now allergic to foods or have gluten and other problems, the airlines now offer select menus that help with that. Food still isn’t all that good, but, you’ll get served first. Caution on diabetic meals: so many diabetic meals I’ve had in the past were filled with carbohydrates.
12. For long flights that land in the morning to early afternoon, it’s best to take a sleeping aid and get all the sleep you can, otherwise you’re in for a day of fighting to stay awake while touring or in meetings. Melatonin is a preferred sleep aid for many. Others get a pill prescribed by their doctor. Others use the blue pill from Costco. A half a pill knocks me out. I also sometimes use Tizanidine which is a muscle relaxant for my back. In minutes I’m out cold for two hours or more. Once you land, get the “kick-a-poo” juice going that keeps you awake. Best to NOT sleep during the day. Your sleep cycle gets all messed up. Best to fight through it and about 9 PM, when the bed is screaming for you to come to it, take another sleep aid. Granted, you’re so tired you’ll quickly fall asleep, but after three or four hours you may awaken because your body clock is still with your home time zone. The sleep aid usually keeps you prone through the night, waking up refreshed and often having won the jet lag war. However, I always take another sleep aid the next night because I have a stubborn sleep cycle. Some valiantly fight the jet lag without the sleeping aids and often lose.
13. For long flights that land in the late afternoon or early evening, fight the urge to sleep on the plane. Watch a ton of movies. If you nod off for a half hour snooze, great. But generally stay awake for most of the flight. You’ll get to your bedroom (home or hotel) often with just enough time for pleasantries, a meal, a shower and giving in to your bed. Don’t let your body fool you and tell you you’re tired enough to sleep through the night. No. Your body is still on your home time zone and you’ll be wide awake at 3 AM. Take the sleeping aid advise given above.
14. Some airlines are close to offering a credit card that lets you pay for your flights on smaller monthly payments – buy now, fly later and keep paying later. Airlines are finding you’ll end up discovering it is worth flying MORE. Most of those discussing offering such a plane charge no interest or premiums for the service.
15. Ever notice when you take your suitcase to the ticket counter it is LUGGAGE, but when you go to the carousel after the flight, it is now BAGGAGE? We can’t figure that out, but we can figure out how to get your luggage faster. It’s called FILO – first in, last out. The first luggage down the belt is loaded on the plane, most of the time, first. All the other luggage comes before. When you land, all that baggage goes onto the carousel first, and your baggage is last. Wait in line before or after.
16. In some foreign airports, luggage thieves wait by the carousels and take luggage that’s been going around a few times, figuring the owners are delayed. I like to get to the carousel quickly to watch the baggage coming out the shoot. I make sure I watch it go around until it meets me, never chasing after it. Relax and enjoy the aroma of luggage transformed.
17. Before you get your bags, grab a cart. Don’t hero the luggage. For one thing the overzealous taxi drivers love to grab the bags out of people’s hands to “help you with such a load!” The cart keeps them at bay. If you’re with a group, establish a central meet place outside customs. Our groups will always be met by our staff with signs clearly with our Heart of Russia Cruises logo…and a bright shining smile on a wonderful person.
18. When travelling to a destination far away, a lay over in a city 3-4 hours away from your final destination can be very relaxing and help you be ready to enjoy your excursion. Airlines are understaffed and may reroute you all over kingdom come to consolidate their planes that have full flight crew. A flight from the west coast USA to Russia that would normally be 4 hours to NYC, 2-3 hours layover, a 7-hour flight to a European airport with a 2 hour layover and then 2-3 hours to Moscow could be about 17 hours. If the airlines reroute you another 5 hours could be added. It’s a hangover from COVID. That extra night going and coming could give you great peace of mind and a stronger body.

view Church leaders in a country where the restored Gospel is struggling to gain a foothold have great challenges helping new members find a way to inculcate the gospel into everyday lives of converts by keeping them involved in helping the Church grow.

Such is the challenge President Boris Leostrin faces daily in leading the St. Petersburg Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But, don’t take my word for it. Ask him.

On February 16, at 7 PM MST, a special Meridian Zoom cast was held with President Leostrin, and you can view it by clicking on the image below.