Free Republic

Despite NATO allies denouncing Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, an independent pollster in Moscow has found Russians rallying around the flag and giving Putin 83% approval on his actions, The New York Times reported Thursday. The 83% approval is actually rising from his 69% in January before the invasion, according to the latest Levada Center poll. The approval on Putin is up, along with many other government institutions and the governing party, according to the report.

It was a remarkable moment in the war in Europe: President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine gave a 90-minute-long Zoom interview on Sunday to four prominent journalists from Russia, the country invading his. Hours later, the Kremlin responded. A government statement notified the Russian news media “of the necessity to refrain from publishing this interview.” Journalists based outside Russia published it anyway. Those still inside Russia did not. The episode laid bare the extraordinary, and partly successful, efforts at censorship being undertaken in Russia by President Vladimir V. Putin’s government as his bloody invasion of Ukraine enters its second month, along...