As war in Ukraine rages, Russians look on with increasing dismay
When Russia annexed Ukraine’s largely Russian-populated territory of Crimea in 2014, it was met with a palpable joy among Russians.
What a difference eight years makes.
Today, despite the fog of war and a deepening crackdown on civil society, surprising numbers of Russians are expressing shock at and even outright opposition to their country’s escalating invasion of Ukraine.
As Russian forces close in on Kyiv and other key Ukrainian cities, and the prospect of hard fighting and large-scale casualties looms, the sort of welcome that the bloodless reunification with Crimea enjoyed – and its coinciding spike in popularity of Russian President Vladimir Putin – seems largely absent today.
