A war where thousands of Russians are dying is less important in Russia than it is in the US? Make that make sense.
That’s the way it is.
Putin did a domestic Q&A just a few weeks ago. Most of the phoned in questions were not about Ukraine. Ukraine was addressed, but it was not the focus. Economic things were, and there were some cultural matters of great importance to callers from various regions.
He does annual Q&As like this. Some of the questions were embarrassing, like one that used an AI Putin avatar to ask the question about computer science tuition at a St Petersburg university.
I think the questions were real. The event was staged because it’s an election campaign, but the questions were not staged.
They have 10s of millions of Reservists because they have done 250K conscription for 1 year of training every single year for decades. He only mobilized 300K of these millions.
They are not taking it very seriously. The questions suggested that.