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The Kilkenny Observer Friday 10 June 2022
kilkennyobserver.ie
Global Report For the urban, middle class people of Russia, the war on Ukraine has altered plans, ruined longed-for holidays and stripped away everyday pleasures like shopping for a favourite foreign clothing brand, turning the key in a new Japanese car, or even munching into a Big Mac. As the war drags on, now well past 100 days and unlikely to see any semblance of a solution before the end of the year, many people yearn for life to go back to normal, before prices went crazy and foreign companies quit the country over Russia’s invasion. But these Russians are equally sure that President Vladimir Putin will keep on fighting until he wins, because that’s what he always does. After convincing the majority of the population that the war was necessary to ‘liberate’ Ukrainians from ‘Nazis’, State television propagandists are now doggedly preparing Russians for a long war, ominously warning that it might end in nuclear war. In Ukraine, that means more civilian casualties, bombed houses and dozens of soldiers killed daily defending the country’s east. Russian hardships may be trivial by contrast, but the deadening gloom of a long war worries the Kremlin, according to analysts, because of the challenge of dragging the population along as sanctions bite, businesses retrench, prices continue to surge, and it dawns on people that life may never go back to the way it was. But the old Kremlin playbook, accusing the West of plans to gobble up Russia, is working so far. Denis Volkov of independent polling agency LevadaCenter said the latest polling for April showed almost half of Russians unconditionally support the war and about 30% support it with reservations, with 19% opposed. Many in focus groups saw it as an existential confrontation with the West, not Ukraine. “People explain that a significant part of the world is against us and it’s only Putin who hopes to hold onto Russia, otherwise
Russians miss their Big Mac but still support Putin’s war we would be eaten up completely. To them it is Russia that is defending itself,” he said. The conflict, however, is taking a toll on Russians like Marina, 57, a language teacher, whose friends are so weary of the war, they avoid the topic. She succeeded in changing the minds of a few friends and relatives who supported the war. “But in general, it seems everyone is
sick and tired of the war or special operation. People have their own problems and the main problem is survival, especially with the rising prices.” Marina acknowledged that few Russians are opposed to the war and most are finding a way to “get by somehow”. But she said: “This ‘somehow’ is becoming boring. Most people got tired of it. I want to travel. Others
want to be able to plan. We want to get back to our ordinary lives.” Marina can’t help dreaming wistfully of her old life — just a few months ago. “I want to be able to watch Western movies on Netflix and shop at Uniqlo. I want to travel to Europe on affordable and reliable airlines. I want to be part of the world and not an outcast,” she said. Many people, still in denial,
are struggling to adapt, said Grigory Yudin, Professor of Political Philosophy at the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences. “The natural question for Russians is not whether I support it or not — nobody asks you, actually — but how do I adapt to this?” People want certainty about their incomes, travel plans and mortgages. Part of the Moscow
elite, including middle-ranking bureaucrats who feel they are Europeans, are not happy about the war, he said, but tend to believe Putin will fight until he wins. “I think the majority of Russians still honestly believe that this is going on with military success, or at least this is what people want to believe,” Yudin said. He added: “The moreeducated people who are more informed and tend to consume information from different sources are not that certain about that. They have significant doubts.” Volkov said the latest polling showed interest in watching news about the war is beginning to wane, with people in focus groups wishing their lives could go back to the way they were. “The best scenario is for this to end as soon as possible and then we hope things will go back to normal,” said Ksenia, 50, a bookkeeper at a firm that sells foreign materials and has been hard hit by Western sanctions. Most of her work colleagues began strongly supporting the war, but lately they avoid the subject, except to complain that ordinary people in Russia always pay the price of government decisions. “My colleagues have finally started to realise that things are not great. In general, we try not to discuss it because we start to fight. They’re saying, ‘We didn’t start this war and now we have to pay.’” Her plan to holiday in Italy this summer is ruined because she cannot get a visa. “Now I feel as if there’s no future and it’s very depressing.” She ached when McDonalds’ golden arches were removed not for any love of the burgers or fries, but for the idea it represented. “I’m really upset about McDonald’s, and I really mean it. McDonald’s has always been a symbol of freedom for me. I remember when the first McDonald’s opened in Moscow,” she said recalling the queues in 1990s months before the Soviet Union collapsed. “It felt like the light at the end of the tunnel.” * News agency services
Some light at the end of the gun law tunnel Leading US senators senators have said there is growing momentum to forge a bipartisan congressional response to recent mass shootings that could toughen federal gun laws for the first time in a generation. But a deal was not yet in hand, they warned, and the delicate talks were expected to continue for several more days as negotiators seek to garner enough Republican support to get a compromise bill through the Senate. Should an agreement come together, it is certain to fall well short of the parameters that President Biden laid out in his White House address, when he called for renewing the federal assault weapons ban that expired in 2004, as
well as significantly expanding federal background checks for gun buyers and removing the firearms indus-
try’s immunity from lawsuits. But a proposal that would encourage states to set up red-flag laws that would allow
authorities to keep guns away from people thought to be a threat to their communities or themselves remains under
keen discussion, as do measures tackling school security and mental health, according to people involved in the discussions. “It’s really tough sledding. But I’ve never been part of conversations that are this serious and this thoughtful before, and I know all the Republicans and Democrats who are at the table are there with total sincerity to get an agreement,” Senator. Chris Murphy (Conn.), the tough and determine Democratic negotiator, said. Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (RPa.), another member of the small group of senators hashing out a potential deal, said on CBS’s Face The Nation that the discussions, while “intensive,” do not “guarantee any
outcome. But it feels to me like we are closer than we’ve been since I’ve been in the Senate”. Toomey co-led a failed 2013 effort to expand criminal background checks for gun buyers after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. The negotiators — and Democratic leaders — have seized on a growing sense of national outrage following the May 14 attack that took 10 lives at a Buffalo supermarket and the May 24 massacre of 19 children and two teachers inside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Tex. Other shootings with multiple victims have followed, including incidents in Tulsa; Ames, Iowa; Philadelphia and Chattanooga, Tennesse.
