section_path: Reactions/Reactions to the Russian invasion of Ukraine/Russian public opinion
section_name: Russian public opinion
paragraph_text: Russian public opinion
  
  An April 2022 survey by the Levada Centre reported that approximately 74% of the Russians polled supported the "special military operation" in Ukraine, suggesting that Russian public opinion has shifted considerably since 2014. According to some sources, a reason many Russians supported the "special military operation" has to do with the propaganda and disinformation. In addition, it has been suggested that some respondents did not want to answer pollsters' questions for fear of negative consequences. At the end of March, a poll conducted in Russia by the Levada Center concluded the following: When asked why they think the military operation is taking place, respondents said it was to protect and defend civilians, ethnic Russians or Russian speakers in Ukraine (43%), to prevent an attack on Russia (25%), to get rid of nationalists and "denazify" Ukraine (21%), and to incorporate Ukraine or the Donbas region into Russia (3%)." According to polls, the Russian President's rating rose from 71% on the eve of the invasion to 82% in March 2023.
  
  The Kremlin's analysis concluded that public support for the war was broad but not deep, and that most Russians would accept anything Putin would call a victory. In September 2023, the head of the VTsIOM state pollster Valery Fyodorov said in an interview that only 10–15% of Russians actively supported the war, and that "most Russians are not demanding the conquest of Kyiv or Odesa." On the accuracy of public opinion polls, Russian-born political activist Vladimir Kara-Murza said: "I see Russian pollsters say that the average response-rate to polls in Russia average from five to seven per-cent; some 90% of the people refuse to say in polls, and very good reasons. It is impossible to judge the true state of public opinion in a country that imprisons you for expressing it....The Putin propaganda machine tries to pretend that Russian society is a monolith, that all Russians support this war, that all Russians support this regime, and this is a lie, needless to say."
  
  In 2023, Oleg Orlov, the chairman of the Board of Human Rights Center " Memorial ", claimed that Russia under Vladimir Putin had descended into fascism and that the army is committing "mass murder".