By Fred Weir, Christian Science Monitor, 8/19/26
Fred Weir is an American journalist who has been based in Moscow for decades.
When Russia’s Supreme Court on Monday upheld the controversial decision to bar the liberal Yabloko party from running any candidates in next month’s elections for the state Duma, it focused on alleged infractions of electoral legislation.
But it doesn’t seem coincidental that the removal of Yabloko – which has participated in every federal election since 1993 – will eliminate the only voice that explicitly opposes the war in Ukraine. That means Russian voters won’t be able to express anti-war sentiments via their ballots.
The decision “is a self-exposure of the political system,” said Yabloko’s venerable founder, Grigory Yavlinsky. “It is obvious that the demand for peace and freedom has turned out to be much stronger today than the authorities expected.”
As the war escalates, with a new generation of Ukrainian drones striking deep into Russia’s heartland, destroying oil refineries and laying waste to consumer distribution centers, Russians are finding it increasingly difficult to ignore, or treat as a distant inconvenience. Like Mr. Yavlinsky, some Western analysts have speculated that the arrival of war’s destructive realities on their own doorstep might cause public patience to wear thin, or that the growing costs and economic strains will lead Russia’s elites to press the Kremlin to end the conflict.
War weariness on the rise
Ukrainian experts say the logic of hitting largely consumer targets is in part retribution for analogous Russian attacks, and that disrupted supply chains affect the military as well. But the hope that rising public pain might stimulate anti-war sentiment and activism is clearly part of Kyiv’s calculation.
In his evening address on Aug. 14, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy noted that “every level of pressure on Russia must bring that country – above all, its society – closer to wanting to end their war.”
Gauging Russian public opinion can be difficult, particularly under war conditions, but some are still trying to do it. Amid the intensified Ukrainian drone assault in July, over 70% of respondents to a survey conducted by the Levada Center, Russia’s only independent [western backed] polling agency, continue to support Russian forces in Ukraine, but almost two-thirds wanted to see peace negotiations.
However, only a quarter approved of making concessions to Ukraine and the West to reach peace, and half backed more assertive military action to bring Ukraine to the table. Half said they believed the Russian army is achieving its war goals, while about a third thought it is not winning.
“The strains have been with us for a long time, and now we have these drone attacks,” says Kirill Poputnikov, an architect in Yaroslavl, a city 160 miles northeast of Moscow that has seen multiple drone attacks, including early August strikes on a local refinery that caused massive fires and sent up thick clouds of black smoke. “If life were normal, then fuel shortages and such might make you feel panic, but with all this going on it’s just another irritating thing.”
In a July survey of Russians by the Levada Center, 57% of respondents assessed the political situation in the country as “tense,” an increase of 10% in just over a year. Only one in four described the situation as “calm,” a decrease of 14% since last year.
Another Levada poll reports that one of the most basic measures of public well-being – what’s sometimes called the “Happiness Index” – has fallen to near-record lows, with just 47% of respondents saying that they are, on balance, satisfied with their lives. Sociologists say that Russians generally tell pollsters that they’re “happy” as long as things are basically OK with health, family, and income.
A big hit to business
Perhaps the hardest-hit social sector is the small-business community, which was already in deep economic distress due to rising taxes, high interest rates, and falling consumer demand even before Ukrainian drones targeted critical warehouse hubs.
Kyiv’s war planners appear to have singled out the online retailer Wildberries, often described as Russia’s version of Amazon. Since July, they have destroyed an estimated 25% of its storage facilities, hitting sites as far away as the Urals city of Yekaterinburg, 1,250 miles from Ukraine’s border, and destroying billions of dollars worth of merchandise.
Lev Gudkov, scientific director of the Levada Center, says the mood among Russia’s approximately 7 million small-business people is one of “pessimism and hopelessness.” Many of them rely on Wildberries and its main competitor, Ozon, and the online nationwide reach they provide, to bring their goods to market. Some have seen their inventories literally go up in smoke and, despite promises of compensation, many are facing imminent bankruptcy.
“Trust in all branches of power – the government, the Duma and, to a lesser extent, the president – is falling,” Mr. Gudkov says.
Margarita Zavadskaya, an expert with the Finnish Institute of International Affairs in Helsinki, says that even beleaguered small-business people are unlikely to panic but – judging by past behavior – they will probably hunker down and find ways to survive, hoping that things will get better.
“We shouldn’t expect a mass flight of entrepreneurs from business, but more cautious behavior,” she says. “They can cut investment and hiring, keep more cash on hand, diversify warehouses and suppliers. These are the kind of actions they take when times get bad.