I have been spending time in Russia every year since the invasion of Ukraine and witnessed a stark societal transformation. Russians went from being shocked by the Kremlin attacking a neighboring country, to despair that no amount of protest could end the war, to fear of escalating repressions against the critics of the war, and finally, to apathy and surrender.
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In July, three years and four months into the war, a survey conducted by the Levada Center, an independent pollster in Moscow, shows that a majority of Russians are happy: 57% of the respondents claimed to be satisfied with their life; a mere 11% of those polled expressed dissatisfaction, which is the lowest since the surveying began in 1993.
Levada Center simply documents public attitudes using statistics. Its surveys vary in their findings across time and can be either favorable or unfavorable to the government. In 2016, the Russian government designated the pollster as a “foreign agent,” a label that the state often assigns to individuals and organizations critical of government policies.
The Kremlin must be rejoicing. Russian President Vladimir Putin likes to boast about Russian society’s massive support for his 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which he refers to as a “Special Military Operation.” So the Kremlin is bound to interpret the results of the Levada Center survey as a strong vote of confidence in his decisions. By reporting that they are satisfied with their lives three years into the war, Russians seem to confirm that they have accepted the Kremlin’s unending war against Ukraine as inevitable.
The price Russia has paid
Putin was able to invade Ukraine without serious domestic consequences because he avoided total conscription and designated the invasion as a Special Military Operation. To keep the Russian public pacified, the Kremlin ran its military campaign by recruiting volunteers, who were paid quite well, including criminals avoiding prison. But reliance on soldiers of fortune undermined the Kremlin’s message of national unity and allowed an overwhelming majority of Russians to stay uninvolved.
In the days after the invasion of Ukraine, thousands of people in cities across Russia protested against the military campaign. The state quickly stepped in to forbid demonstrations and restrict freedoms. Many local and international media organizations were banned, and activists were arrested. The notorious list of so-called “foreign agents,” which was established in 2012, grew exponentially in recent years. In early 2022, 300 people and organizations were on the list; the number is well over 1,000 now.
Still, most Russians have been able to continue their “normal” life in exchange for not speaking out against the status quo. The state media and government representatives push militarism and self-sacrifice; school curricula endlessly celebrate Russian war victories; theaters obediently stage works of communist-era patriotic authors; and cities display army recruitment banners and hero worship posters. For many across Russia, this has become white noise.
An imitation culture
Putin’s stated goal of the invasion of Ukraine was to “eliminate the anti-Russian enclave,” and to preserve Russia’s “distinct civilization,” which required a total rejection of the perceived valueless West. Yet the Kremlin’s battle with the West has turned solitary. Cultural and societal habits in Russia remain thoroughly Western, or global as it were, despite growing restrictions.
The U.S., Europe and their allies imposed massive sanctions on Russian companies and individuals. Numerous Western corporations announced their intention to curtail operations in the country within weeks of the invasion. Most of these businesses finalized their exit last year.
In the run up to the Swedish fashion retailer, H&M, closing its stores in November 2022, Russians lined up outside its outlets. The Russian textile and garment manufacturers, which had to fill the void created by the departure of American and European brands, ended up imitating the styles of H&M and other consumer favorites such as Uniqlo, Massimo Dutti, and J.Crew.
The leading Russian fashion designers—Line, Befree, Love Republic—use English names and the Latin alphabet. Although government officials have been demanding that citizens embrace everything Russian, restaurants, cinema, and theater look almost as they did before the war.
Russia has long been an imitation culture. Even during the most secluded communist era, Soviet ideology was a Russian iteration of Karl Marx’s philosophy. Today, to simplify spying on Russian citizens, the government is rolling out a “national” messenger app to replace the foreign messaging apps, Signal and WhatsApp. Not only was the Russian app pieced together using Chinese, American, and Indian codes, despite all the flag waving it has an English name: MAX.
Putin insists that since starting the war Russia has increased its “economic sovereignty,” and developed a “new model” of the economy. But his “new model” is simply serving the war effort, while numerous industries from construction to mining to automobiles face collapse. Russia has spent too many resources to withstand the pressure of Western sanctions. With the oil and gas prices declining and the economy growing at just over one percent, Russia already has a budget deficit equaling 3.4 % of the GDP.
Are Russians really happy?
In such conditions, I wondered about the majority of Russians claiming to be satisfied with their lives in the Levada Center survey. In August, I visited a posh bookstore called Respublika on Tverskaya Street in Moscow. In recent months, as despotism intensified an increasing number of writers, scholars, and thinkers were declared foreign agents, and their books were taken off the shelves. The bookstore did offer comfortable chairs for reading of the books it could still carry. There were designer chocolates, coffee corners, and despite sanctions: Pringles and Coca-Cola. Comfort rather than books had become its main attraction.
I was there to meet Svetlana, a 23-year-old, who had participated in the Levada Center survey. She works as a manager for an Information Technology company, and requested her last name be withheld for security concerns. Svetlana sipped a fancy mixture of espresso and orange juice. She explained that her drink was a fad imported from Berlin and called Bumble, not Shmel, a Russian word for a bumblebee. The store signs were in English, too—notebooks, candles, Disney and Lego games and toys. “We try to ignore the government’s mounting controls,” she remarked. “No one wants to care that Putin signed a law that all public titles should appear in Cyrillic.”
Svetlana declared with a smile that she was happy. I was startled. Optimism has never been a Russian forte. Russians have endured too much government oppression for too long. From a nearby shelf, I picked up a volume of Anna Akhmatova’s Requiem, an elegy for the suffering of people under Joseph Stalin’s Great Purges in the 1930s. “Every Russian book in this store speaks not of happiness but of misery and anguish,” I exclaimed. “What’s happening now is beyond tragic.”
I spoke of the terrible human costs of war for Ukraine and Russia, and how a state of prolonged conflict was entrenching a dictatorship in Russia. I was wondering what kind of future young Russians like Svetlana envisioned living a half-life. How were they adjusting to the increasingly insular educational system? In August, Russian authorities withdrew from the International Baccalaureat program, declaring its cosmopolitanism “undesirable,” an even harsher designation than a foreign agent. How would they live with increasing censorship and books disappearing from book stores? How do they manage when MAX, the “national” messaging app spies on their every move?
“Things are challenging, yes, but life is possible,” Svetlana said, cheerful.
When the war began, she was 20. She joined the protests. Nothing worked, and she cried for months. Eventually, Svetlana signed up for online management classes taught by Harvard and Stanford professors. “I change VPNs every time they are blocked,” she told me. “I keep accessing what’s banned and ‘undesirable’—my Dozhd TV and my Meduza news, Politico, and the BBC.”
She was betting on time.
“All these geriatrics in power,” Svetlana added. “They will die before us.”
To bear the long years of authoritarian rule, it seems, Russians have actively turned to antidepressants. Sales of the “anti-fear pills” have been brisk: 13 million packets in 2022; 15 million packets in 2023; 16 million in 2024. In the first half of 2025, it is already over nine million. “This is not counting home remedies such as the Validol tablets to tackle neurosis,” Lyudmila, who works at a 36-6 apothecary in Moscow, told me. She also requested her last name be withheld for security concerns.
Popular since the Soviet days, Validol, a mild sedative sold over the counter, flies off the shelves in tens of millions each year. I mentioned the Lavada Center survey results to Lyudmila. She chuckled. “People say they’re happy. Or they’d be accused of treason. In reality, they are filled with stress.”
Svetlana’s optimistic pretend normalcy and Lyudmila’s practical approach to medication point to impossibility of fathoming the many crushing consequences of the Ukraine crisis. The basics are: Russia wins, and it is Europe’s pariah for decades; Ukraine wins, and the Kremlin will increase the levels of domestic pressure even more.
Perhaps this is why so many people in Russia escape—into thinking it’s not as bad as it could have been or by numbing themselves to reality with anti-depressants. They bide time. Is this really happiness?