Page 36 - RusRPTJan23

Shortly after Russia invaded, polls showed Russians generally viewed the conflict as a defence of Russian speakers or others in Donbas. But Russians now seem far more uncertain of the war’s aims, with more than one out of five (22%) saying they could not describe the purpose of the war — an increase of 13% since March.
Meanwhile, the percentage of Russians who described the war as defensive dropped from 43% to 27%.
And after nine months of war and numerous setbacks for Russian forces, Russians were found to slightly favour negotiations, with five to four in favour of starting talks and a slim majority, 53%, in favour of negotiations overall.
More Russians are in favour of starting talks when reminded of the costs being inflicted upon Russia, with 62% supporting talks if they would end the deaths of Russian soldiers.
If peace talks were to take place, there was little support for concessions from Moscow among the Russian public. 78% of Russians said it would be unacceptable to return Crimea to Ukraine, while 66% said the same of the eastern Donbas region, which remains occupied by Russian forces and their Ukrainian allies.
Almost eight out of ten Russians said it would be acceptable to allow Ukraine to resume shipping grain to other countries, while nearly all favoured a reciprocal exchange of prisoners of war.
Surveys of Ukrainians show retaking of Crimea has high levels of support, with one poll from September finding that nearly nine out of ten Ukrainians believed Kyiv should not allow Russia to keep any Ukrainian territory — even if that meant prolonging the conflict.
The number of Russians dying every 30 days has stabilised over the last seven months, allowing the country’s life expectancy to recover from its pandemic lows; but the number being born has continued to fall catastrophically, pushing the total population of the country down faster than anywhere in the world except Japan, Yevgeny Chernyshov says.
In October of this year, 145,000 Russians died, according to Rosstat, the Nakanune journalist who writes frequently about demography observes, down significantly from 247,000 in October 2021 and down slightly from the average monthly figures during the pre-covid years of 2017-2019.
As a result, life expectancy in Russia has recovered to 73 years, close to the historic maximum of 73.3 years in 2019 and likely pointing to a new record in 2014, the journalist continues.
36 RUSSIA Country Report January 2023 www.intellinews.com