Who is popular today?

A dark, sombre mood filled the Moscow air on Thursday morning as Russians were coming to terms with the fact that their president had launched a broad military offensive targeting Ukraine.
“I am embarrassed for my country. To be honest with you, I am speechless. War is always scary. We don’t want this,” said Nikita Golubev, a 30-year old teacher.
“Why are we doing this?” he added, expressing a sentiment of anger and hopelessness that was shared by many commuting to work down central Arbat Street.
At the Ukrainian culture centre just down the road, the mood was even grimmer.
The Ukrainian administrator said the centre, which aims to promote the language, traditions and identity of a country Vladimir Putin denied the legitimacy of as a modern state in his speech on Monday, would be shut for the “coming period”.
“We are being bombed as we speak. Of course we are closed! Jesus, what is happening?” the administrator, who did not want to give his name, shouted.
Just a day earlier, Ukraine advised its estimated three million citizens living in Russia to leave the country immediately, throwing the lives of many Ukrainians in Moscow into disarray
There were already signs that Russians were uncomfortable with Putin’s initial decision to recognise the two self-proclaimed republics in Donbas.
On Tuesday, Yuri Dudt, one of Russia’s most popular media personalities, said he “did not vote for this regime” and its need for an empire and felt ashamed, in a post that received almost a million likes in 24 hours.
A fresh poll by the independent Levada Center released on Thursday showed that only 45 per cent of Russians stood in favour of the recognition move that preceded Thursday morning’s dramatic events.
“I didn’t think Putin would be willing to go all the way. How can we bomb Ukraine? Our countries have their disagreements, but this is not a way to solve them,” said Muscovite Ksenia.
But outcries of anger were not only felt on the streets of Moscow, where the Guardian did not encounter support for the military assault.
Russia’s cultural and sporting elite, usually firmly behind Putin and often called upon by the president during election campaigns to gather popular support, also expressed their deep worries about Russia’s invasion.
Valery Meladze, arguable the country’s most beloved singer, posted an emotional video in which he “begged” Russia to stop the war.
“Today something happened that should have never happened. History will be the judge of these events. But today, I beg you, please stop the war.”
Likewise, Russian football international Fyodor Smolov posted on his Instagram channel: “No to War!!!”
US intelligence for months warned that Russia would seek to fabricate a major pretext before launching an invasion of Ukraine.
In the end, no major false flag came, and experts now believe that Putin decided to act without gathering the backing of his own electorate.
“Putin seems totally indifferent to approval on the street. He’s acting not like a politician in need of public support, but like a figure from national history books who cares only about the approval of future historians and readers,” tweeted Alexander Baunov, a political analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center.
Oligarchs
The Russian leader looked to have also surprised some of Russia’s most prominent oligarchs, who saw their wealth tumble as the country’s financial markets collapsed.
Just on Monday, after Putin recognised the independence of the two Donbas territories, Oleg Deripaska, a Kremlin-friendly oligarch who once said that “he does not separate himself from the Russian state”, exclaimed on his Telegram channel that “war had been averted”. He has since deleted the post.
On Russian state television, the invasion was framed as a defensive mission aimed at preserving Russian lives. “What’s the point of a major first strike? However strange or cynical it sounds, it’s actually humane because it allows everyone around to prevent a large massacre. By immobilising Ukraine, life is being preserved,” said pundit Vladislav Shurygin on the Channel One programme Vremya Pokazhet.
On another channel, introducing the news of the invasion, the presenter said that “Russia has begun a special military operation aimed at protecting people who for the last eight years have been subjected to abuse and genocide by the regime in Kyiv”.
As the invasion news settled in, people in Moscow began circulating posts online urging others to “go on a walk” on Thursday evening, a phrase used to describe protests that have been outlawed since the start of the pandemic.
But in a country where a single picket protest can land you in jail, and which saw an unprecedented crackdown on the opposition in the last few years, it remains a question to what extent Russians will be able and willing to take to streets to show their opposition to the bloody conflict.
Police began detaining people at Pushkin Square in central Moscow at an anti-war protest on Thursday evening, the RIA news agency reported. – Guardian/Reuters