俄羅斯人正在接受普京在烏克蘭的戰爭 (1/2)

Recently Yahoo News on-line reported the following:

Russians Are Coming to Terms With Putin’s War in Ukraine (1/2)

Bloomberg News

Tue, May 7, 2024 at 4:08 a.m. PDT·7 min read

(Bloomberg) -- Russians are learning to live with the war that Vladimir Putin has unleashed in Ukraine.

With Putin being sworn in on Tuesday for another six years as president, the invasion has become part of everyday life for many Russians, confounding expectations that the pressure of international sanctions and deepening isolation would eventually turn them against him. Far from protesting, many are rallying around the flag.

The Kremlin is using Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II to reshape Russia, combining strident nationalism involving a potent mix of Soviet-era and imperial nostalgia with an intensifying crackdown on dissent. As a result, Putin faces little domestic pressure to end the fighting despite massive military casualties, posing a challenge for Ukraine’s US and European allies as they seek to raise the cost for Russia of continuing the war that’s now in its third year.

That’s in sharp contrast to the first months after the February 2022 invasion when many Russians reacted with anger, depression and shock, according to Anna Kuleshova, a sociologist at the Social Foresight Group who left Russia when the war started and now lives in Luxembourg.

“When there is no way out of a situation with dignity, there is no way to leave, and there is a need to earn money and raise children, then it’s easier to accept a new reality than to resist it endlessly,” Kuleshova said.

The war has permeated every level of Russian society. In many schools, children send gifts and letters to frontline soldiers, and must attend special lessons where teachers drum home the Kremlin’s message that the country is at war with the West in Ukraine and acted to defend itself by carrying out the unprovoked invasion.

TV and radio shows are often filled with war themes, casting those fighting in Ukraine as successors of the generation that defeated the Nazi German invasion in the “Great Patriotic War,” ignoring the fact that Russia is the aggressor this time. Army recruitment campaigns offer lucrative signing bonuses and salaries for those who’ll “be a man” and join up as contract soldiers.

Platon Mamatov, 41, signed a contract in April to return to Ukraine after spending six months at the front last year. He said people in his native Urals city of Ekaterinburg often approach him to offer help and support when they see him in uniform. While not everyone supports the invasion, there’s been a “consolidation of society” behind the army, he said.

“Everyone realized that this is a war and that it concerns everyone,” he said. “Border territories are shelled daily, factories are burning inside Russia, drones are flying, funerals and disabled people are coming back from the front.”

Putin declared his intention to form a new political and business elite from those “who have proved their loyalty to Russia” in the war shortly before he gained a fifth term with a record 87% in the March presidential election. The Kremlin presented the pre-determined election in which he faced no real competition as evidence the public fully supports Putin’s showdown with the West.

Sanctions failed “to create enough economic discomfort at the personal level, to expose to Russians the link between the wars they launch and the erosion of their own wellbeing,” said Maria Snegovaya, senior fellow with the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. The impact on Russians’ living standards is “too small to radically change the public mood,” she said.

Indeed, as Russia adjusted to the unprecedented sanctions that failed to collapse its economy, many Russians found a financial upside to the war. Deepening labor shortages exacerbated by the military’s demand for recruits have added to spiraling wage pressures as businesses hike salaries to retain staff or fill vacancies.

Russia’s war economy is growing strongly for now as the government pours money into the defense industry and seeks to shield domestic businesses from the impact of sanctions. The Kremlin continues to reap income from oil and gas sales, pivoting to countries such as India and China after Europe shunned Russian energy.

“Indicators of public sentiment about the socio-economic situation are at the level of 2008, the peak of Putin’s stability,” said Denis Volkov, director of the independent Levada Center pollster, referring to the energy-driven consumer boom during the president’s first two terms. “The state spends huge resources on creating the feeling that everything is in order, that we live as usual.”

Still, Russia is using up reserves in its national wealth fund to support surging state expenditure, while inflation is running at almost twice the central bank’s 4% target. The Bank of Russia has hiked the key interest rate to 16% and the government has imposed capital controls to ease pressure on the ruble.

(to be continued)

Translation

（彭博）—俄羅斯人正在學會與普京在烏克蘭發動的戰爭共存。

隨著普京週二宣誓就任總統另一個六年，入侵已成為許多俄羅斯人日常生活的一部分，這打破了人們的預期，即國際制裁的壓力和日益加深的孤立最終會讓他們反對他。 許多人非但沒有抗議，反而作出幫助或支持。

克里姆林宮正在利用二戰以來歐洲最嚴重的衝突來重塑俄羅斯，將強烈的民族主義與對異議的嚴厲鎮壓結合起來，其中強烈地融合了蘇聯時代和帝國懷舊情緒。 因此，儘管造成大量軍事人員傷亡，普京在國內幾乎沒有面臨結束戰鬥的壓力，這對烏克蘭的美國和歐洲盟友構成了挑戰，因為他們試圖提高俄羅斯繼續這場現已進入第三年的戰爭的成本。

Social Foresight Group 的社會學家 Anna Kuleshova 表示，這與2022 年2 月入侵後的頭幾個月形成鮮明對比，當時許多俄羅斯人的反應是憤怒、沮喪和震驚。她在戰爭開始時離開了俄羅斯，現在住在盧森堡。

Kuleshova說： “當無法有尊嚴地擺脫困境、無法離開、需要賺錢和撫養孩子時，接受新的現實比無休止地抵抗更容易。”

戰爭已經滲透到俄羅斯社會的各個層面。 在許多學校，孩子們給前線士兵禮物和信件，並且必須參加特殊課程，老師們會向老師們灌輸克里姆林宮的信息，即該正國在烏克蘭與西方國家交戰，並透過在没有被挑舋之下去入侵烏克蘭來保衛自己。

電視和廣播節目常常充斥著戰爭主題，將烏克蘭的戰鬥人員描繪成在「衛國戰爭」中擊敗納粹德國入侵的一代人的接班人，而忽略了這次侵略者是俄羅斯的事實。 陸軍徵兵活動為那些將「成為真漢子」並作為合約士兵加入的人, 提供豐厚的簽約獎金和薪水。

41 歲Platon Mamatov 去年在前線服役了六個月後，於 4 月簽署了返回烏克蘭的合約。 他說，他的家鄉烏拉爾市 Ekaterinburg 的人們在看到他穿著制服時, 經常向他提供幫助和支持。 他說，雖然並非所有人都支持入侵，但軍隊背後有「社會的堅實」支持。

他說: 「每個人都意識到這是一場戰爭，它關係到每個人」。 「邊境地區每天都遭到砲擊，俄羅斯境內的工廠在燃燒，無人機在飛行，舉行葬禮, 和殘疾人從前線回來」。

普京在3月份的總統選舉中以創紀錄的87%的支持率獲得第五個任期前不久，宣布打算從那些在戰爭中「證明了對俄羅斯忠誠」的人中組建新的政治和商業精英。 克里姆林宮利用了一個他沒有真正競爭, 預先確定結果的選舉，作為公眾完全支持普京與西方攤牌的證據。

位於華盛頓的戰略與國際研究中心的歐洲,俄羅斯和歐亞計劃高級研究員 Maria Snegovaya 表示，制裁未能「在個人層面上造成足夠的經濟不適，也未能讓俄羅斯人認識到他們發動的戰爭與自身福祉受到侵蝕之間的關聯」。 她說，制裁對俄羅斯人生活水平的影響「太小，無法從根本上改變公眾情緒」。

事實上，隨著俄羅斯適應前所未有的制裁，它未能使其經濟崩潰，許多俄羅斯人發現了戰爭帶來的經濟好處。 軍方對新兵的需求加劇了勞動力短缺，隨著企業提高薪資以留住員工或填補空缺，薪資壓力不斷上升。

隨著政府向國防工業投入資金,並尋求保護國內企業免受制裁的影響，俄羅斯的戰時經濟目前正在強勁成長。克里姆林宮繼續從石油和天然氣銷售中獲得收入, 在歐洲避開俄羅斯能源後，將焦點轉向印度和中國等國家。

獨立的 Levada Center民調機構主任Denis Volkov表示：「公眾對社會經濟狀況的情緒指標處於2008 年的水平，即普京穩定的頂峰。」他指的是總統前兩屆任期內由能源驅動的消費熱潮。 “國家花費了大量資源來營造一切都井然有序、我們如常生活的感覺。”

儘管如此，俄羅斯仍在動用其國家財富基金的儲備來支持激增的國家支出，而通膨率幾乎是央行 4% 目標的兩倍。 俄羅斯央行將關鍵利率上調至16%，政府實施資本管制以緩解對盧布的壓力。

(to be continued)

Note:

1. Anna KULESHOVA is an independent researcher as disclosed in her web-site. She says that she also holds the position of Chairwoman at the Russian Council on the Ethics of Scientific Publications and is the founder of Social Researchers Across Borders. Her contributions extend to the literary world as a co-author of “Open Question: Public Opinion Polls in the Modern History of Russia” and “Parenthood 2.0”. Her collaboration in international research projects includes partnerships with eminent scientists from Hanguk University, Seoul. (https://kuleshova.org/)