With almost half of Russians expressing “horror and anxiety” at the mobilization of 300,000 reservists to fight in Ukraine and the first drop in his popularity since the invasion of the neighbor in February, President Vladimir Putin decided to give a symbolic response to the criticism that has come. getting.
They even came from staunch allies of his government. The leader announced on Wednesday (5) a new decree extending to a series of categories of students the exemption from the obligation to respond to the criticized enlistment for the Ukraine War.
The Russian quoted the text during a meeting with teachers, which was televised, this Wednesday (5). Students from some private universities and graduate students from specific technical disciplines will be free to fight. The universe of people affected is not known, but it is a response to the images of mothers crying over the departure of their children.
When he decreed the partial mobilization and annexation of four Ukrainian regions on September 21, Putin brought the hitherto distant impact of the conflict that began in February into Russian homes in an unprecedented way.
The only independent research institute in Russia, the Levada Center, has published the first research on the impact of the measure on the local perception of war. No less than 47% said they felt “horror and anxiety” with the measure, compared to 23% who said they were shocked and 13% said they were angry. 23% reported patriotic pride.
56% of the ears said they were very worried about the war, compared to 37% in August. There has been a reversal in the curve of those who think action should continue and those who would like to see a peace negotiation.
The former were 48% in August and are now 44%, while the latter went from 44% to 48%. These are numbers within the two-point average margin of error, but may indicate a trend. Support for the war itself remained high, but with a negative oscillation: from 76% to 72%
Even worse for the Kremlin, Putin’s approval rating has dropped from 83% to 77%. Before the war it was at 71%, jumped to 83% and has fluctuated there ever since. Of course, these would be numbers envied by any Western ruler, but for the Russian it is a matter of political survival. The power framework he has built up over two decades assumes that the elite support him and that he remains popular. Levada heard 1,600 people from September 22 to 28.
The mobilization was chaotic, but seems to be stabilizing: the Ministry of Defense speaks of more than 200,000 enlisted personnel already sent to train. Each Russian region applied its own rules, and in the end the initial lines outlined by the Ministry of Defense were flouted.
Thus, several citizens who had been recruits in the military ended up enrolled even though they were over 35 years old, the age limit set by the Defense rules, for example. That has led to unprecedented criticism from the likes of Margarita Simonian, the powerful editor-in-chief of state-run TV network RT, considered one of Putin’s most prominent propagandists.
The conduct of the war, especially with the success of the Kiev counter-offensive that retaken the occupied region in Kharkiv (northeast) and the pressure now on Donetsk and Kherson, two of the areas formally annexed on Wednesday, led to hard-line allies of the regime such as Chechen Ramzan Kadyrov criticizing the military command.
There has been an exodus of people living near the borders of countries that do not require a Russian visa. In the first week of mobilization alone, Kazakhstan counted 100,000 neighbors entering its territory. This flow has subsided there and in countries like Georgia, not least because Moscow has begun to control the issuance of passports more.
And there are also abundant stories of local authorities forcing conscription into schools and even prisons. The Kremlin recognized that there were problems in enforcing the order, and made an exit gesture for the middle class by exempting from the draft a number of urban professions vital to the economy, such as IT and banking workers, as well as classes with some influence, like journalists.
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