Ever since the Russian army invaded Ukraine, I am constantly asked: what do the Russian people think about the war? Do they support it? This is a deceptively difficult question to answer. Even before the war, when Russia was an authoritarian country with a small, marginalized independent press, it was hard to separate what people actually believed from the sanctioned talking points they would parrot from state-owned television. How many Russians, after all, would give their true and unvarnished opinion to a stranger from an official-sounding organization, calling out of the blue?
Inside Russia’s Media Black Hole
Julia Ioffe
March 10, 2022
