Russian Sociologist Says Putin's War Is Going Even Worse Than It Looks

Boris Kagarlitsky, a Moscow-based sociologist and host of the popular Russian YouTube talk show Rabkor, told Loren Balhorn in an interview for Jacobin magazine on July 25, 2022 that Russians do not care about President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, and that any so-called poll in Russia about public support for the war would be bogus because only 5 to 7 percent of the population responds to such polls, and they cannot constitute a representative sample.

Photo Insert: Boris Kagarlitsky is a Moscow-based sociologist and host of the popular Russian YouTube talk show Rabkor.

Kagarlitsky said that 4 million people have left Russia since February 24, 2022, which is equivalent to the number of Ukrainians who have gone to other countries. Of the 8 million Ukrainians who left, half have returned.

“That’s the most interesting sociological and political problem: Russian people are neither for the war nor against it. They do not react to the war. As a sociologist, I can confirm that since the war, the number of people who agree to respond to opinion polls has collapsed to a level that is totally unrepresentative. Before the war it was below 30 percent, which is already very low. Now, it’s considered a big success when 10 percent agree to respond. Usually, it’s 5 percent to 7 percent. Russian people are neither for the war nor against it. They do not react to the war. Of those 5 percent, about 65 to 70 percent support the war,” Kagarlitsky argued.

“The whole spectrum of political opinion — including both loyalists and the opposition, whether leftist or fascist, liberal or conservative — represents maybe 15 to 20 percent of the population, probably less than 10 percent. The rest are totally apolitical. On the one hand, that’s a great advantage for the regime, but it’s also its biggest problem. Nobody moves against the government, but nobody moves in favor of it, either. That’s why the COVID vaccination campaign failed, and why Putin can’t announce a general mobilization. Volodymyr Zelensky announced the other day that he wants to mobilize a million people. Russia can’t mobilize 200,000 because everybody runs away,” he explained.

Kagarlitsky stressed that independent Russia media have not been shut down completely.

“It’s not shut down completely. They’re trying their best, but they simply fail. The good thing about this country is that everything fails, no matter what. That’s why we joke that fascism could never work in Russia — because nothing works here,” he said.

“Some of the people making videos emigrated, and yes, there are problems for those of us still on the ground. I’m labeled as a ‘foreign agent,’ for example, so when I speak in public, I have to recite some stupid mantra about being a foreign agent or pay a fine. But people still laugh at the authorities, which is another good thing about Russia. They jail people, they arrest them and make them pay fines, but people still laugh at them,” Kagarlitsky concluded.

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