Ukraine invasion: Russians feel the pain of international sanctions

One ex senior minister suggested to me that there was a generational divide between those who had lived with the threat of the Cold War era, and those who had not. The former minister, currently a serving Conservative MP, pointed out that the prime minister grew up without that existential threat. Yet the Army is already looking at how it might create a citizens' army. One Whitehall source told the Times that the training of Ukrainian civilians on UK soil could act as a rehearsal for rapid Army expansion. But others have responded by "prepping for war" - stocking food and fuel. Russia's invasion of Ukraine has focussed the West's military minds.

I deleted some of my messages because the police check social media chats on public transportation. In addition, the police recently searched the flat of a close friend of mine and then put her under house arrest for two months. She had been putting up posters that said “No to war” around the city. None of us wanted this war, and we stand in opposition to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s actions. At demonstrations, people are detained for several days or fined.

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He is not a bright leader, and not the tyrant that the opposition paints him as, but he is definitely not the best thing that could happen to Russia. “At  https://euronewstop.co.uk/why-dont-ukraine-bomb-the-convoy.html , I took a favourable position [of the campaign], because even before February 24, I considered it necessary to eliminate the Ukrainian problem. But now time has passed, it’s become obvious that no positive outcomes are to be expected. 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. Polls have suggested that even though they are the least likely to support the invasion, many still back it.

• For the record, they don’t support the war in general, they do want it to stop; however, they can justify it in their heads somehow.
• (These surveys were conducted before Mr Putin announced his mobilisation drive.) But these shocking figures are deceptive.
• MOSCOW — Waiting for her friends on Moscow’s primly landscaped Boulevard Ring earlier this week, Svetlana Kozakova admitted that she’d had a sleepless night.

"I always pay with my phone but it simply didn't work. There were some other people with the same problem. It turned out that the barriers are operated by VTB bank which is under sanctions and cannot accept Google Pay and Apple Pay. Like other interviewees for this article we are not using his full name or showing his face for security reasons. So there's really no surprise that when trying to escape the economic hardships in Ukraine in the 90's and ever since, many western Ukrainians went to Europe to find jobs. The influence is so strong that nowadays, it's often hard to hear the Ukrainian language being spoken on the streets of eastern Ukraine.

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Images on social media have shown long queues forming at ATMs and money exchanges around the country in recent days, with people worried their bank cards may stop working or that limits will be placed on the amount of cash they can withdraw. It could be their Soviet past, or the government propaganda that has been poured out for so many years, or just that there is too much fear and anxiety to actually allow the thought that the world is different from what they expect. Being far away from them helps because we try to prioritise keeping our relationship intact and caring for each other more than anything. Sometimes I can’t help but try to convince them, which obviously doesn’t work. For the record, they don’t support the war in general, they do want it to stop; however, they can justify it in their heads somehow.

• The overall effect means Finland can muster one of Europe's largest armies.
• Donald Tusk has called the war between Ukraine and Russia a battle between “good and evil”.
• And we have the specter of pro-Russian forces in eastern Ukraine stoking separatist feelings there.
• As a result, some of the few remaining independent media in Russia have started to censor themselves.
• Throughout the war, researchers have been trying to understand what factors would reduce public support in Russia.
• It seemed to me that all this was not real and could not last long.

This results in skewed samples and inflates the level of support for the war. In mid-March, Aleksei Miniailo, a former social entrepreneur and current opposition politician, oversaw another telephone survey with the aim of trying to capture the effects of fear and propaganda on survey data. And that figure came from among those who agreed to participate at all; Miniailo suspected that the polls were not capturing a majority of the real antiwar sentiment, whatever its size.

Ilya (name changed), who is in his early 30s, has just finished paying off his mortgage in Moscow. On Monday Russia more than doubled its interest rate to 20% in response to the sanctions after the rouble plunged to record new lows. The stock market remains closed amid fears of a massive share sell-off.

“Russia continues to illegally wage war across Ukraine but the country continues to show remarkable determination and resilience in the face of Russia’s attacks, which is why the UK has changed its travel advice to these regions,” it said. Ukraine’s president earlier signed a decree instructing the government to develop a plan for preserving the national identity of the “historically inhabited lands” of Krasnodar Krai, Belgorod, Bryansk, Voronezh, Kursk and Rostov. Germany's Defence Minister, Boris Pistorius, recently told a German newspaper "we have to take into account that Vladimir Putin might even attack a Nato country one day". While he said such an attack is unlikely now, "our experts expect a period of five to eight years in which this could be possible". Last week, another senior Nato military chief said countries needed to be on alert "and expect the unexpected". Adm Rob Bauer, who heads the alliance's military committee, said the public needed to change their mindset for an era "when anything can happen at any time".

• In a panel I moderated, the Ukrainian historian and author Olena Stiazhkina began her remarks by expressing her gratitude to the Ukrainian armed forces for their defense of the homeland.
• And that figure came from among those who agreed to participate at all; Miniailo suspected that the polls were not capturing a majority of the real antiwar sentiment, whatever its size.
• You can argue that it isn’t realistic or human to force all Russians into a black-and-white response—either oppose the war or you are complicit.
• The common thread, she says, is a deep distrust of the West, rooted in decades of state propaganda.
• One Whitehall source told the Times that the training of Ukrainian civilians on UK soil could act as a rehearsal for rapid Army expansion.

The national guard is  controlled by the interior ministry and is responsible for internal security, public order and guarding critical infrastructure. “Foreign volunteers who took up arms to defend Ukraine, all those who fight for Ukraine’s freedom as if it were their homeland,” Mr Zelensky said. An artillery strike that killed at least 25  people at a crowded market in Russian-occupied Donetsk shows Ukraine’s “vicious side”, the Kremlin has said. Donald Tusk has vowed to “solve problems” between Poland and Ukraine after disgruntled Polish truckers called off their blockade of the Ukrainian border. Ukraine’s defence intelligence said in December that rat-bite fever had been spreading rapidly among Russian soldiers on the Kupyansk front.

• Since then, very limited amounts of those currencies have been available and there is a cap on how many roubles you can withdraw.
• The fact that the majority of Russians tune in to TV news means they are inclined to at least hear the Kremlin's message - and possibly believe it.
• “We discussed with the prime minister that all critical issues that exist can be resolved at the level of governments, and work on this will begin shortly,” Mr Zelensky said.
• Russians lapped up the real and imaginary threats that were fed to them, and generally assessed military action as justified, defensive, and/or preventative.