The Invasion of Ukraine is lasting longer than the Russians expected. On February 24th the war officially began, with Russian troops pushing into Ukraine. Many Russian citizens are against the war and are not afraid to speak up. The OVD, an independent human rights media group reported 13000 protestors have been arrested as of Thursday, March 10th. These protestors have been threatened with up to 15 years in prison and still roam the streets, and this causes serious consequences for Russia. With them struggling to keep their own country under control, and chaos running rampant in the streets it adds more conflicts for Russian leaders. The Russian people know they have to protest to tell people the truth because, with his grasp on social media, this is the only way to spread the truth without any censorship. 

Large groups such as the people in a position of influence; provide a key role in the influence on public opinions. It’s hard to tell where their opinions stand on the invasion, because it is risky to speak out against a dictatorship until there’s a significant amount of supporters to safely resist with safety in numbers. Russia is heavily censoring its media, a quote from CNBC shows how the Russians are resisting.“Russians are turning to VPNs to bypass the country’s tightening internet controls following the invasion of Ukraine.” Russia is controlling people from talking about the war, over social media, and all throughout the internet.

It’s very hard to tell how most Russians feel about the war, the CEPA says, “Russian popular support for the Ukraine invasion ranges from 65% backing to 71%, according to the first polls on the issue.” However, it is very hard to get an accurate public opinion. in an autocracy, people are often afraid to answer honestly to these polls and resist. According to the Washington Post, a lot of Russians do support the invasion, about 58% this number is an estimate taking into account that Russia would never share with the world how the citizens actually feel. It’s easy to assume the numbers should be lower, that most Russians would not support such a thing. The only hope is that the war will end with the Russian people finding out the truth, and we can make peace with the Russian people.