How has Russia changed, more than a year after its invasion of Ukraine? Has it become a fascist state with soldiers in the classroom, and people afraid to express the slightest doubts about the war? Are Russians consenting to be mobilised, to kill and be killed on the front? What do ordinary people really think about Ukrainians, the West and their own government?
At the beginning of last year, I spent time trying to answer the question of how war would change Russia – my hunch was “the same, but worse”. I continue to ask that question, both of myself and the dozens of Russians I work with.
I’m the only foreign anthropologist to have carried out fieldwork in Russia since the war began. I’m also (probably) the only researcher with long-term contacts from all walks of life, who can get reliable responses and avoid many of the biases those studying Russia are unavoidably subject to. Explaining the war means that many contradictory things need to be said. For many Russians, the conflict is traumatising yet normalised at the same time.
