Are Russia's defeats in Ukraine causing a shift in public opinion?

DW News ^ | Sep 20, 2022 | DW News

[UMCRevMom@aol.com]

Ukraine’s recent successes have left some opponents of Russian President Vladimir Putin's war emboldened to speak out against the Kremlin.

One of Russia's most celebrated pop stars, Alla Pugachova has asked to be declared a foreign agent, in solidarity with her exiled husband Maxim Galkin. He was designated a foreign agent less than a week ago.

In an online post, she said Putin's war in Ukraine was "killing soldiers for illusory aims", and turning Russia into a "global pariah".

Is there a shift in Russian public opinion, given Moscow's recent military set-backs in its war on Ukraine?

[UMCRevMom@aol.com]

A Ukrainian in the recently retaken eastern town of Izium said on Sunday she opposed the referendums in Russian-occupied regions in south-east Ukraine, while the humanitarian situation in the town remained dire.

VIDEO 9-26-2022
Izium residents oppose referendums, chop firewood

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/izium-residents-oppose-referendums-chop-firewood/vi-AA12eJp3?category=foryou

[mylife]

I had to turn the heat on this week...

[UMCRevMom@aol.com]

1- Thousands of Russians flee country after Putin’s military mobilization order
Sep 26, 2022

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrdGeY312Ms

Thousands of Russians are fleeing the country to avoid being drafted into the war in Ukraine, with lines of people and vehicles at Russia’s border checkpoints. BBC News correspondent Rayhan Demytrie joins CBS News to discuss how Russians feel about the Kremlin’s recent military mobilization order and how far many are willing to go to avoid fighting in Ukraine.

2- Macron: Russian resentment could be a reason Putin chose to invade Ukraine
Sep 22, 2022

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BT5nXDhtOo

[VIDEO IN ENGLISH ALSO TRANSCRIPT AVAILABLE]
During an exclusive one-on-one, French President Emmanuel Macron opens up to CNN’s Jake Tapper about his theory on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s mindset. Macron explains why he believes Russian resentment and isolation due to Covid-19 possibly played a role in Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine.

[Flick Lives]

When headlines are posed as a question, it throws the entire article into doubt.

[wardaddy]

Putins and special military operations support polls are mid 80s according to polls down in Russia and taken by outside firms like Pew

Putin will likely take heat if he doesn’t win significant concessions in Peace deal

Ukraine same thing if they give up too much after such casualties

It’s unlikely both sides will be happy at same time

It’s like a bad biz deal

The least unhappiness you can accept to get out of it

[higgmeister]

Barbara, what are you going to do in six months when the Ukraine no longer exists?

[MalPearce]

Report on the Vedomosti site says that a new Crimean district of the Russian will be formed out of the occupied regions combined.

It’s still not clear yet if this will include Kherson (which one source from Russia itself is saying was flawed), nor if the limit is for the Russian controlled areas of the other Oblasts.

A curious thing - one source I’ve read, from Moscow no less, says that the votes except in Kherson were all above board - this opens the opportunity for Russia to be pragmatic - the Crimean district CAN’T contain Ukrainian strongholds, not without committing to a very long period of draconian military occupation.

That’s of particular interest with Zaporizhzhia because the Russian controlled area pretty much ends at the south bank of the Dnipro with almost a horizontal line from there to Dnipropetrovsk Oblast marking the divide between Ukrainian held and Russian held. The Uke held area has more than double the population of the rural middle.

Frankly, any Russian attempt to enforce rule over that city without military occupation of it is totally impossible.

It would be very easy for Russia to “withdraw” from all contested rural areas of Kherson and Mikolaiv oblasts on the north side of the river (which aren’t densely populated and would require a manufactured border to maintain), then draw a border from Vasylivka to Ternuvate in Zaporizhzhia.

North of the line could be Ukraine, south of it is Russian controlled.

The alternative is, over 800,000 people in Zaporizhzhia city end up enemies of Russia and fair game for a massive aerial onslaught (even though over a third of them are Russian Ukrainians) just for the right to plant a Russian flag in a city that is nowhere near being under Russian control.

And the referendum numbers just don’t stack up - maybe they allowed 3/11ths of the Oblast population a right to vote, and maybe 2.4/11 of them actually did vote for annexation, but even the Kremlin knows that it’s nowhere near even a technical majority let alone a decisive majority.

[Travis McGee]

[About the “Ukrainian victories:”]

“Soldiers in the past week portrayed the battlefield losses as “high” and “massive.” They described large offensives in which Ukrainian tanks and vehicles tried to cross open fields only to be pounded mercilessly by Russian artillery and mines”

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/24/world/europe/ukraine-south-kherson-russia.html

[NorseViking]

Kool-Aid. Give residents of Zaporozhiye a right to vote and they’d vote for Russia in a heart beat. Regarding uncontrolled areas the Ukrainian policies are self-defeating. If smearing everyone as collaborator, cutting services and stealing bank accounts wasn’t enough, showering residential areas with anti-personnel mines sure was.

[NorseViking]

I actually though the Ukies are going to get Lyman given their vastly superior numbers. If they can’t do even that then these stories of victories worth nothing.

[ScottinVA]

Are Russia's defeats in Ukraine causing a shift in public opinion?

Not in the Russia branch of FR. Putinists are as verklempt for their little KGB gnome as ever.

[MalPearce]

The Ukrainian side has confirmed today that the collaborators facing treason charges are those who facilitated in the setup and execution of these fake referendums, not the people being coerced into voting.

800,000 people in and around northern Zaporizhzhia (including those from the south of the Oblast temporarily displaced) were denied a vote.

30,000 people in Russia were given a vote.

4 million displaced people from across all four regions were not balloted.

Even if you were correct to say that the majority of those people would’ve supported the annexation, they had no opportunity to vote.

Tell you what: if that sounds credible to you, how about Poland and Lithuania holding a referendum on annexation of Kaliningrad based on Prussian Lithuania history.

Ballots the Oblast, winner takes all... But doesn’t ballot anyone in any town west of Gvardeysk.

By Putin’s demented logic, the declaration of 15 towns for independence from Russia is enough to not bother asking how the population of Kaliningrad, Svetly or Baltiysk felt.

Exact same logic.

[NorseViking]

There are five percent Polish and Lithuanians in Kaliningrad, your analogy is silly.
Once again, why should people support whose who disowned and killing them?

[MalPearce]

Here’s a thought, Russkie. Russia could’ve asked them. Or, looked at the election results since 2018.

Oh, wait, no. Russia didn’t ever bother, did it.

Russia asked some senile old misty eyed Soviet Union reenactment fans if they wanted tge hammer and sickle back, and asked Red Dennis, and other assorted criminals on the DNR paramilitary payroll, but it didn’t bother asking the people.

Ask them why, if they’re all so pro Rashist, they saw Russia coming... and instead of singing songs and throwing flowers they fled into UKRAINIAN HELD territory.

For your deluded, propaganda-addled, vodka soaked Vatnik fantasy to be true, over half a million Russians are identifiable as Russian patriots by virtue of lemming-like suicidal tendencies, running hundreds of miles seeking Ukrainian protection when they could’ve met the Red Army they love so dearly only a few miles down the road.

The far more realistic alternative is, they aren’t in favor of Russian annexation and Russia has completely llkilled whatever vestigial loyalty might’ve remained by SACKING THEIR LAND.

Face it: you’ve swallowed so much Kremlin bullshit that your hair’s got a brown crust. You’re about as credible as Baghdad Bob.

[MalPearce]

But never mind debating it. We’ll find out in a week’s time when Putin’s either:

1. Partitioned Zaporizhzhia on the basis he has no chance ever of winning over the half million Russians camped in and around the Ukrainian held city ; or

2. Bombed it into dust because he cared more about the land grab than he cared about the people.

[Bishop_Malachi]

Not in the Russia branch of FR. Putinists are as verklempt for their little KGB gnome as ever.

___________________________________________________

...and the Lincoln Project homos are in full force here too.

[NorseViking]

The idea is perfectly simple. With all the terror the Zelensky regime unleashed on the recaptured part of Harkov right now, people need to be sure that Russia is there to stay. I have no doubt that 60-80% of everywhere south and east of Kiev support partition from Ukraine. Kick the Galician carpetbaggers out, and Kiev would follow.

[MalPearce]

Then you are completely detached from reality.



Father Dougal was confounded by the difference between a small toy cow and a real sized one "far away". Even he could've understood there's a connection between the direction people running to, and what they're running from. Why can't you?!

Far more Russian speakers from Russian families with close ties to Russia FLED the occupation and FLED ANNEXATION, than stayed in occupied areas to vote for it. The brain drain is also immense.

Russia's proxy regimes are comprised of mercs on a payroll, misty eyed senior citizens, village idiots, and career criminals turned opportunist.

There's no bigger indictment of Russia's delusions than the contrast between the "flowers and songs" they expected, and the thought of Russian annexation going down worse - in the wider Russian Ukrainian community! - than a runny fart in an elevator.

There are far more Russian Ukrainian refugees running away from annexation than there are Russian Ukrainians voting for the annexation.

The separatists were a minority even in the Russian community before February and if they didn't have Russian backing they would struggle to fill a church hall.

[NorseViking]

I have been to Crimea and Donbas. I have been to Odessa as well. Your propaganda is opposite to reality.