Russians in Wartime and Defensive Consolidation

Abstract

Apart from some protests, most ordinary Russians have not overtly opposed their country’s invasion of Ukraine, but nor do they appear to support it enthusiastically. Long-term ethnographic research in the country suggests that Russians have entered a phase of “defensive consolidation,” a psychological means of coping with a state that does little for their welfare and has now left the country largely isolated with its military aggression against its closest neighbor. In the search for lost collective purpose since the collapse of the Soviet Union, patriotism is imbued with nostalgia and desperation.