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Kirill Rogov on what Russians really think of the war in Ukraine

 It’s 9 pm in Moscow and the police have already broken up the bulk of the protests. Since anyone with anti-war signs is arrested immediately, protesters casually stroll along until a large enough crowd gathers to shout their opposition to what's going on in Ukraine. US President Joe Biden said Mr Putin had chosen a premeditated war that will bring a catastrophic loss of life and human suffering. There are reports of attacks on Ukrainian military infrastructure across the country, and Russian convoys entering from all directions. In early March, the US Department of Defense opened a direct line of communication with its Russian peers in order to avoid any kind of accidental conflict. The Arctic is warming up to four times faster than the Earth as a whole. But, since Russia invaded Ukraine, it's been increasingly difficult for climate scientists in Russia to collaborate or share data about conditions in the country's vast frozen areas. Lack of data about conditions in the Russian Arctic is already hampering climate science, and will cause ever-growing gaps in our understanding of how climate change affects the fastest-warming region of the planet, scientists warn. But since the invasion of Ukraine, it has been harder for Russian scientists to share data about how climate change is affecting the region. This tiny chapel is on the grounds of the Northeast Science Station near the Russian town of Chersky. The EU has to make a U-turn on teenagers driving lorries St Petersburg, Russia – On Thursday morning, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that his armed forces were launching a massive operation against Ukraine, sending frightened Kyiv residents into underground stations for shelter. My feelings are mixed regarding the decision of our president. I got a government email saying that we had until March 14 to download all files from Instagram. We have VK (a Russian substitute for Facebook), but it’s not the same. I have a colleague in my laboratory who is a reviewer at an open access science publisher. Now, those who want to publish and are affiliated with Russia have been asked to withhold applications, though they have not yet been officially withdrawn. As a result, the general pre-invasion view was that Russia would easily win a conventional war. In early February, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley told members of Congress that Kyiv, the capital, could fall within 72 hours of a Russian invasion. From the outset, Russia’s decision to invade was hard to understand; it seemed at odds with what most experts saw as Russia’s strategic interests. As the war has progressed, the widely predicted Russian victory has failed to emerge as Ukrainian fighters have repeatedly fended off attacks from a vastly superior force. Ukraine: EU sanctions Russia defence minister, military chief They are still trying to track Russian public opinion on key topics, including the war in Ukraine, providing a rare window into how the Russian public views the war’s dramatic turns over the last 18 months. Most ordinary Russians are in the middle, trying to make sense of a situation they didn't choose, don't understand and feel powerless to change. In https://euronewstop.co.uk/how-many-aircraft-has-russia-lost-in-ukraine.html , close to the Ukrainian border and just 80km (50 miles) from the now war-torn city of Kharkiv, local people are now used to convoys of military trucks roaring towards the front line. Volkov adds that public opinion matters, even though the Russian government isn't taking the public's pulse in order to plan its next moves. The first, a blitzkrieg to capture Kyiv, failed within the first month. The second, the seemingly inevitable offensive, stalled in the summer and was abandoned in early September following the success of Ukraine’s counter-offensive. In the third version, the Russian motherland has been declared in danger and hundreds of thousands of men are being drafted to fight. The “partial mobilisation” declared by Vladimir Putin on September 21st looks like forced improvisation and it is disrupting the balance of interests and loyalties in Russian society, where views on the war are very mixed. Russians make Thailand a refuge as Ukraine war enters second year A few years ago, Tape helped start the Arctic Beaver Observation Network, so scientists all around the Arctic could collaborate and share data. But with the invasion of Ukraine, the dream of Russian collaboration in the project stalled, he says. We're having a meeting at the end of February, he says, and it's basically Alaska, Canada and Scandinavia. There's no one from Russia coming. Opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who has been serving prison time since 2021 after leading street protests and starting a nationwide opposition movement, was recently moved to a penal colony in Russia's far north. They may be frightened and apprehensive, and not very keen to fight, but they are not ready to break away from the imaginary “national body” whose will and aspirations are expressed for them by Mr Putin. Some compromise is imaginable here — an internationally monitored referendum in each territory, perhaps — but what that would look like is not obvious. The sanctions now hitting Russia are being described as economic war - they aim to isolate the country and create a deep recession there. One of my brothers-in-law and my father will potentially lose their jobs because their businesses worked very closely with European businesses, and all of those lines of communication are closed off now.

https://euronewstop.co.uk/how-many-aircraft-has-russia-lost-in-ukraine.html