Charles Maines

I also ran into Alexander Borodai, a key figure in Russia's initial shadow war in eastern Ukraine more than a decade ago, before the full-scale invasion.

Now a member of parliament and sanctioned by the West, Borodai told me he still didn't know when, but victory in Ukraine was coming.

Yes, it's taken longer and been harder than we would have liked in Ukraine, thanks to interference by the West, said Baradai.

But we'll get there, and we're willing to pay any price.

In today's Russia, history can feel like a feedback loop.

The past echoed, amplified, and accelerated to distort the present.

For four years, in speech after speech, Russian President Vladimir Putin has drawn parallels between the fight against Nazis then and the current military campaign against supposed fascists in Kyiv.

And for four years, the Kremlin leader has insisted Russians remain united behind the war effort in Ukraine, one that's dragged on far longer than many predicted, even longer than the Soviet Union's battles against Hitler's armies.

That's Alexei Minyalov, an opposition activist who launched Chronicles, a research project to counter what he argues is weaponized polling in favor of the war.

Pagnyalo says in an environment where criticism of the Russian invasion is criminalized, of course a vast majority of Russians say they support the military campaign.

It's out of self-preservation.

Yet when presented with more nuanced choices, for example, would you support a decision to withdraw forces early or prefer government resources be devoted elsewhere, a truer picture emerges.

In other words, the answers you get depend on the questions you ask.

In smaller towns like Livni, some 300 miles to the south of the capital, the war mostly thrives on conformity, money, and fear, says Irina Turbina.

Her son Arseny, serving a five-year jail term for his anti-war views.

He was just 15 years old, a precocious eighth grader with a love for physics, Real Madrid and opposition politics, when mass government security agents stormed their apartment in 2023.

He was later convicted on terrorism charges for aiding the Ukrainian army, a crime Arseny denies and his mother maintains was fabricated.

Amid Arseny's legal troubles, Turbina has watched as neighbors and colleagues avoided contact or gone out of their way to show support for the Russian invasion, just in case, she suspects.

Meanwhile, others in town have gone off to fight, with army enlistment bonuses and state bereavement payouts in the tens of thousands of dollars transforming the local economy.

The government's ability to preserve a sense of normalcy has been key to maintaining public morale, says Sergei Politaev, a supporter of the war effort who writes for the politics blog Vatfor.