Jailed Alexey Navalny posts another thread claiming anti-war support is growing in Russia

1/14 Whether Russians actually support the hideous war that Putin has waged against Ukraine is a matter of utmost political importance. The answer to this question will largely define Russia’s place in the history of the 21st century.

— Alexey Navalny (@navalny) March 8, 2022

2/14 It’s one thing if Putin killed Ukrainian civilians and destroyed life-critical infrastructure with full approval from the Russian citizens. However, it’s a whole different story if Putin’s bloody venture is not supported by the society.

— Alexey Navalny (@navalny) March 8, 2022

3/14 How can we measure this? To run a classic phone survey is time-consuming. Therefore we decide to hold a series of 4 quick, ultra-short online polls. Each of them included 700 participants from Moscow, all of them Internet users; quota sampling by gender and age took place.

— Alexey Navalny (@navalny) March 8, 2022

4/14 We can observe rapid shifts in the evaluation of Russia’s role in the war. The share of respondents who view Russia as the aggressor doubled, while the share of those considering Russia a “peace-maker” halved. pic.twitter.com/Rw7ORosVpH

— Alexey Navalny (@navalny) March 8, 2022

5/14 Although many of the participants still tend to blame “the West” for initiating the war, the number of respondents who consider Ukraine guilty went down in half. Meanwhile, the share of those accusing Russia increased from 14% to 36%, i.e. by 2.5 times. pic.twitter.com/Bb0wN7fNfb

— Alexey Navalny (@navalny) March 8, 2022

6/14 The numbers of those considering the war consequence-free were scarce right from the start of the invasion, and decreased further by three times in a week’s period. pic.twitter.com/pbBzWtdESw

— Alexey Navalny (@navalny) March 8, 2022

7/14 And finally, the majority stand in favor of negotiations, peace and the soonest possible end to this fratricidal war. pic.twitter.com/ReUZbWyblT

— Alexey Navalny (@navalny) March 8, 2022

8/14 As noted above, this is not a nationwide poll. We don’t know the relation between these figures and the general population. However, running 4 survey waves in a short timeframe while adhering to the same method gave us an opportunity to observe the dynamics of public opinion

— Alexey Navalny (@navalny) March 8, 2022

9/14 Throughout the history of ACF’s polling department, we have never observed such dynamics of public opinion shifts. It took a few days of war to bring about radical mood changes among Russians.

— Alexey Navalny (@navalny) March 8, 2022

10/14 The nature of these changes is plain and unambiguous: people rapidly begin to realize who is responsible for initiating the conflict, as well as the war’s true objectives and possible outcomes.

— Alexey Navalny (@navalny) March 8, 2022

11/14 Undoubtedly, the Kremlin can see these dynamics as well, hence the nervousness, the desperate attempts to end the war campaign as soon as possible.

— Alexey Navalny (@navalny) March 8, 2022

12/14 The anti-war momentum will keep growing across the society, so the anti-war protests should not be halted under any circumstances.

— Alexey Navalny (@navalny) March 8, 2022

13/14 People are generally willing to change their stance, but only if we engage them in the dialogue and provide them with true information about the war.

— Alexey Navalny (@navalny) March 8, 2022

14/14 The primary survey data can be viewed and double-checked here: https://t.co/1QYHQImuTV

— Alexey Navalny (@navalny) March 8, 2022