It's complicated, because the government position on it is a few 'valid' concerns backed up with a lot of irrelevant bullshit about long-dead history. Practically, nobody is going to be stopping this. By deciding on sanctions, everyone in the west made it clear that it doesn't want to fight a war, and the regime is currently too secure to be threatened by internal dissent.

The best realistic outcome at the moment is something similar to what happened to Georgia - occupation of the two territories, a referendum, annexation, and an end to the proxy war.

Whether we are going to get that outcome, or something worse, is, of course, unclear.

A Russian here under a throwaway account. I've seen very few open supporters of the military invasion on social media. But most Russians, reached by TV or social media propaganda, carry on 3-5 factoids regarding Ukraine that somehow invalidates Ukrainian position completely.

For example, just from today's talk (face-to-face):

* that Ukrainian forces supposedly committed crimes in Donbass region -- when I ask who in particular and how, these people fail to answer. When I say that they had full right to suppress armed riot of Girkin & co, they switch the topic.

* that the government were illegally overthrown in 2014. I challenged that with the fact that Yanukovich's own party voted to introduce an president interim and start new elections.

Both times I pushed the interlocutor and asked if I lied, and they have nothing to say, nor have more facts, but jump between topics all the time, switching from facts to questions -- like "did they start living better?" or "what about those who died in Odessa protest?" I guess this demagogy is enough for those who want to justify their stance, and to claim own moral superiority.

I asked if they support the invasion, and they say they don't. I'm sure they'll have to make up their mind, but I'm afraid people can choose whatever more convenient to feel ok.

A recent sociological surveys made in January showed about half of population being on Putin's side, even 40% of those in political opposition to him. Sociologists confronted people with evidence of Russian military buildup, and respondents usually answered that this was "Western propaganda" and tried to avoid further discussion.

I can't read minds of the elites and secret service generals who constitute the Security Council, but it seems this is partially what they think -- secret services are very suspicious of everyone and treat everything as a threat. This leads to believing in conspiracies, and justifies agression.

As for me and many others who value the open world borders and don't want back to USSR, I'm most worried that we're going to be under severe sectoral sanctions, with many industries in serious crisis, like in the 1990s.

Now, I forgot to mention that all this "they're bad" sentiment is part of so-called post-imperial syndrome. Many are really dissentful.

Also, I'm old enough to remember the popular dissent with the USSR in the late '80s. We as kids would repeat the adults' discussions about how bad the country was, and our parents weren't political dissidents at all, just common dwellers, absolutely non-ideologized. Many wanted friendship with the West. Only very ideologized communtists wanted to keep the status quo when the USSR collapsed, and obviously even secret services where Putin served wanted to open the country and the economy and did not resist the collapse, nor support the GKChP coup.

The economic crisis of the '90s and the war in Yugoslavia where what changed people's minds. I remember seeing a woman carry a white plastic bag with large US flag on it, probably in 1991 or 1992, but that became unthinkable in 1999-2000. Even a liberal pro-Western TV presenter Parfyonov showed some sort of dissent in his historic program when he described the events of 1991.

Those years many changed their minds about the past, and went all way from complete discontent with the communist regime to believing that it was good and that it was destroyed intentionally.

Yep, I remember the real excitement in Russia about US around 1990+ and Kosovo was like a cold shower for many believers there.

Or it could have been the point of crystallization of all the ammassed dissent of the 90s and free market reforms.

Putin has been busy cracking down hard on any descent for the past two years of his bunker dwelling. This round included not only the usual opposition organizations but independent news orgs and even the elites. I believe whatever his plans are it’s been at least a few years in the making

Russians (some of them, to clarify) associate the current Ukrainian regime with Nazism/fascism. After all, far right groups were a major part of the 2014 revolution/putsch.

https://crimethinc.com/2022/02/15/war-and-anarchists-anti-au... (note: the disinformation section is especially relevant)

Why are you saying that? Not all Russians are brainwashed by state propaganda. I think very few Russians who read Hackernews actually support what is going on right now, if any. To be honest, me and all of the people around me thought that this is too crazy to happen, but here we are.

This reminds me of "I can tolerate anything except the outgroup":

> What I mean is – well, take creationists. According to Gallup polls, about 46% of Americans are creationists. Not just in the sense of believing God helped guide evolution. I mean they think evolution is a vile atheist lie and God created humans exactly as they exist right now. That’s half the country.

> And I don’t have a single one of those people in my social circle. It’s not because I’m deliberately avoiding them; I’m pretty live-and-let-live politically, I wouldn’t ostracize someone just for some weird beliefs. And yet, even though I probably know about a hundred fifty people, I am pretty confident that not one of them is creationist. Odds of this happening by chance? 1/2^150 = 1/10^45 = approximately the chance of picking a particular atom if you are randomly selecting among all the atoms on Earth.

You could live in a circle that unanimously opposes the war, and still be in a country that's 60% for it.

Thing is, given the propaganda machine in Russia and the lack of free (even non-guvernamental) organizations we can't really tell if that percentage is 6% or 60%.

Russians who read HN are probably in the minority though, right?

And yeah not everyone listens to propaganda, and there is going to be a lot of diversity of opinion, but propaganda does work and a large percent of the population are going to get duped.

That's the thing that people don't understand about propaganda: the reason it's bad and scary is that _it works_.

Corollary (because I’m not sure I was explicit enough): propaganda most certainly has worked on me without my even realizing, a great many times I am sure, and it most certainly has worked on you as well, dear HackerNews reader. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you’re immune, or too clever.

I say this with much affection and no presumption: I think Russian nationals on HackerNews are probably not a representative sample of Russian nationals generally speaking.

I think %anycountry nationals% on HackerNews are probably not a representative sample of %anycountry nationals% generally speaking.

Yes, that’s what I said and meant. I was only more specific because the context was more specific. There was no intended suggestion that this would not also be the case for other nationalities.

See: “principle of charitable interpretation”

"Yes/No" support is a bit of an over-simplifaction of the situation.

There's two major axes, here.

The government is pushing the 'Ukranian neo-nazis' propaganda, because it's a convenient bullshit excuse (as is all the spilled ink in Putin's essay about long-dead history). Some soft-headed people obviously believe that wholesale. What isn't an excuse, though, is that Ukraine did take steps to restrict its Russian minority. Many Russians who don't swallow the neo-nazi nonsense are sympathetic to that view on the situation (for, uh, obvious nationalistic reasons).

Now, whether or not sympathy for that is sufficient grounds to do nothing and respect Ukrainian sovereignty, to prosecute a proxy war, a limited war, or a full war all depends on how much of a warhawk you personally are.

My highly unscientific feeling is that public support rests somewhere north of 'most Russians believe that Ukraine has been repressing Russians, and would support a proxy war', and somewhere short of 'drive the fascist swine out - prosecute a full war and occupation of Kiev'.

Take steps like completely restricting Russian language in schools, public spaces, TV, etc? Considering that 100 years ago Ukrainian language was a dialect for peasants, that’s quite a leap. Communists started “rooting” - korenization - program in 1920s when Russians were wholesale written as Ukrainians in their ID papers, another 20 years of these steps and there will be no Russians left in Ukraine, same thing happened to Turks in Bulgaria. People remember and the current regime in Kiew is controlled by ultra-nationalists from Volyn and Galicia, with their worship of Bandera, OUN/UPA and the rest of the scum. When they came to power during Maidan, people hear the chant all the time - “Moskalyaku na gilyaku”. Do you know what it means?

Yes, thank you for making the point about how Russians may be sympathetic to that direction.

But exactly how many people are you ready to kill over your sympathies? Could you give a ballpark order of magnitude estimate? 10? 100? 10,000? [1] 100,000?

On a scale of cultural repression, I can't say that this situation elicits even a small fraction of sympathy from me as what's going on with say, the Uyghurs in China.

[1] We're past that mark already.

Current regime — is a Russian speaking comedian Vova Zelenskiy (who is a Jew) and his party, which won elections. There is no nationalist party in Ukrainian parliament. There is Russian language in public spaces and TV. There are more then 600 schools with Russian language of instruction.

"Dialect for peasants" has its roots in Ruthenian language, that was a main language in Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

And no, Russians were not written wholesale as Ukrainians, anyone who can check Soviet records can attest that.

>> people hear the chant all the time - “Moskalyaku na gilyaku Well, if they would listen to Russian TV, they would hear that.

> Russians associate the current Ukrainian regime with Nazism/fascism.

I guess you are speaking for majority of Russians. Is there an independent survey to back it up?

Look up the chant - Moskalyaku na gilyaku - which supporters of the current regime chant all the time. Plenty of videos of that. Check what it means.

There were elections in 2019 which completely changed power in Ukraine, humorous chant from 2014 has no relation to power in modern ukraine.