Viktor*, 22, sits inside his uncle’s abandoned flat in Moscow, worried that if he steps outside, he’ll be recruited to the Russian military by soldiers on the streets below.
Three weeks ago, the oil and gas management graduate lived in a buzzy, vibrant capital city full of his friends and had a job at an advertising startup working with clients including Google and Facebook.
But since his country invaded Ukraine last month, life for ordinary Russians like Viktor has changed. Within a matter of days, his company has had to close in the wake of Western economic sanctions on Russia; his uncle’s family and most of his friends have fled the country; and soldiers are roaming the streets, ready to arrest any civilians who protest against Putin’s so-called “special military operation”, as the brave TV editor Marina Ovsyannikova did on Russian state TV on Monday night.
Like many liberal Russian youths, Viktor is now unemployed, losing money and worried about his future. He’s assures me he’ll be okay - he has somewhere to live and is far safer than his friends and peers over the border in Ukraine. But he still fears for his safety and survival if he cannot find a job. His mother Kira*, an economist living 70km outside Moscow, is trying to raise funds to help him leave Russia (she will stay to look after her elderly mother), but economic sanctions have made this very difficult. The Russian rouble has plunged to record lows, civilians have been blocked from withdrawing more than $10,000 until September, and prices of plane tickets are skyrocketing, even if Viktor can find a country that will take him in.
Viktor chooses his words carefully. He knows that the horrors on the other side of the border are far more bleak. Thanks to a group of “evil” politicians he did not vote for, Ukrainians both inside and fleeing Ukraine are being shot at, starved and in some cases, bombed inside maternity and children’s hospitals. Putin’s invasion has sparked the worst refugee crisis since World War Two (WW2) and killed more than 2,500 innocent Ukrainian people, but among the myriad of horrors being rained on the world by Putin and his army is one hitting closer to home: in the hearts of his own people, the Russians themselves, a large proportion of whom strongly disagree with the war and feel let down by the country they grew up proud to be a part of.
For Viktor and those left in Russia, the mood in Moscow feels like a return to the Iron Curtain era that his grandparents grew up in after WW2. But this time, he and his friends have access to a tool that those in the Seventies did not have: their smartphones. Although apps including Facebook, Instagram and TikTok have all been blocked in Russia by the government, Viktor and his fellow young people quickly found way around it, downloading VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) so they can still access social media, and moving conversations onto Telegram, an encrypted messaging app that has quickly become most young Russians’ main portal to the outside world and a way to express their disgust at Putin’s actions.
“I’m too scared to write about the war [on social media], but I am totally opposed - I have friends and family in Ukraine, we are brothers. I don’t understand why the government would do this,” he tells me over a Telegram call.
The 22-year-old and his fellow young Russians might not be able to outwardly protest for fear of arrested, but they are calling it what it is: an invasion - and mobilising, fast. Thanks to technology, Viktor and friends across the world from the UK to Sri Lanka are able to remain a politicised generation, posting videos about Putin’s atrocities in Ukraine, sharing information on how to escape their country and uniting in their horror at their mother country’s actions in Ukraine.
Indeed, while Russian opinion polls show more than 65 per cent of Russians support the invasion of Ukraine, evidence suggests these numbers are deceptive. Citizens face a 15-year jail sentence if they contradict the official Kremlin position on the war so actual figures are hard to come by, but anecdotal reports and the fact that more than 10,000 brave people have been detained at protests since the start of the invasion suggests that large numbers of young, liberal, social media-savvy Russians are opposed to the war. “Horrified”, “heartbroken” and “ashamed” are just some of the words being used to describe the collective feeling among Russians who feel able to speak out - most of them still afraid of Putin’s retaliation, but even more afraid of having the world think they might support him.
“It’s beyond me,” prominent Russian TikToker Vlasta Pilot (@thevlasta), 32, told her 500,000 followers last week, calling her country’s conflict with Ukraine “a sh** show”. The pregnant activist is currently in Los Angeles and fears she’ll never be able to return home to Russia after posting five videos criticising Putin’s invasion of Ukraine so far. Russian teens have been sharing TikToks of themselves fist-bumping in support of Donbas, tweeting the hashtags #StandWithUkraine and #ÑнемолÑÑ (“I’m not silent”) and sharing Instagrams of a new #whitebluewhite symbol they’ve created to represent Russians who oppose the war: a Russian flag with the red being wiped off, as though they’re ridding it of blood.
Even the children of some Russian oligarchs’ have been (subtly) joining the social media resistance. The daughter of one close member of Putin’s inner circle shared a powerful hashtag “HET BONHE [no to war]” on her Instagram Story days before the war started (it has since been deleted) while the daughter of another prominent Russian oligarch hinted at her allegiance with Ukrainians last month. “The biggest and most successful lie of Kremlin’s propaganda is that most Russians stand with Putin,” read the slogan on a post she shared on her Instagram Story the day after Russia invaded Ukraine.
Both women have, notably, kept their main Instagram grids clear of any war commentary. Instead, Telegram has become most young Russians’ main communication channel overnight - a way for family and friends abroad to safely share the facts of what is happening in Ukraine beyond what they’re told on state TV news.
One of those feeding this information to friends inside Russia is Maria Zherebtsova, 36, a Russian-born investment manager and hat designer living in London. The Oxford graduate and mother-of-two says she has spent most of the last three weeks in tears at watching her motherland bomb, shell and trample the Ukrainian cities of Kyiv, Kharkiv and Mariupol, where she has friends and family.
“I can only compare it to intense feelings of grief. I feel like I’m on the wrong side of history. The world is collapsing and it’s being done in my name,” she says. To show her opposition, she has been protesting outside the Russian embassy in a homemade hat, a take on the traditional Russian headpiece with colourful ribbons in the colours of the Ukrainian flag. “I’m screaming as loudly as I can that it’s not something I subscribed to,” she says.
Zherebtsova feels lucky that her parents left Russia for Spain many years ago and understand the realities of Putin’s devastation. But for other Russians - particularly older generations - who remain in Russia, the country has become a “zombieland”, she says. Former journalist Katya Nikitina, 37, the founder of London’s Russian-speaking Zima Magazine who lives in Woolwich, has seen this for herself with her own elderly parents, with whom she’s had “huge arguments” since the war started. They live in Russia and still believe Putin’s “special operation” line. She feels torn. “I want them to know the truth, but I don’t know what will happen to them if they realise [the truth]... They’re elderly and not in great health,” she says.
Instead, Nikitina is focusing on what she can do from her home in London: using Telegram and other social media channels to help friends fleeing Russia. Her best friend, a 38-year-old former journalist now working in advertising, is scared of losing her job and is trying to leave the country - but flight ticket prices are through the roof. “They are the second wave of political refugees: people who are completely innocent and are going to be penalised,” she says.
Alongside helping friends stuck in Russia, Nikitina is desperate to support those from Ukraine. She has been fundraising and collecting clothes for a Ukrainian friend from Kyiv who is due to arrive in the UK with her children next week, and attending support marches for Ukraine in Trafalgar and Parliament squares with ‘Putin is my enemy, too’ placards. For her and many fellow Russians in London, outward symbols of solidarity are important right now. Zherebtsova says her Russian-Ukrainian protest headpiece was “a way of showing how linked our two nations are. It’s almost like a civil war, our countries are so close”. Ukrainians protesting around her were understanding - they knew that being Russian doesn’t mean she is the enemy, but they were still “on the edge”. “They kept asking: ‘But why? But why?’” she recalls.
Moscow-born cellist Tatiana Bejenari, 33, lives in Islington and has been organising concerts for Ukraine as a show of solidarity. Last week, footage of her and 200 musicians performing the Ukrainian national anthem in Trafalgar Square was beamed across the world, and tickets have already sold out for a ‘Music for Peace’ concert she’s hosting at a Russian cultural centre on Bloomsbury Square this Friday. “[The performance in Trafalgar Square] was so deeply moving,” she says.
“It breaks my heart that if I was in Moscow, I wouldn’t be able to do it - or I’d be punished if I did. The least we [in the UK] can do is speak up, because if we were in Russia I don’t think I’d have the courage to do it.”
For Nikitina, making sure people understand this vast difference between Putin and ordinary Russians is important. “I hate Putin. I literally want him to die - but I can’t hate my country,” she says. She and other members of this Russian youthquake see their government as “criminals” and “geriatric leaders” who have “thrown Russia deep into the stifling stagnation of the Seventies”, as Zherebtsova describes it.
Her parents remember the old Russia, in the days of the Iron Curtain, but they - the younger generation - grew up in a very different era, one in which Russian liberals and young creatives smoked, drank and partied through the night in a fun, buzzy, multicultural Moscow that felt “more or less open”, as author Ben Judah describes it in his essay on the Russia he knew in the late 2000s that has now been lost.
For young Russians like Viktor, that Moscow he grew up in is already unrecognisable. He is lucky that he is young, mobile and should be able to make a new life abroad, if money and politics allow. But for older generations like his mother, Kira, 45, there is less hope for the future. “I don’t know how we will live [if I lose my job],” the economist tells me through sobs from her kitchen, where she is sharing a bottle of wine with a friend because “it’s one of the few things we can do”. “I’m afraid for my parents, my son, my property, my house, my car... I worked hard for all of it. I could sell it and move abroad, but it’s not my life.”
Even for Russians living abroad, there are uncertainties about the future: will they be able to see their families in Moscow again? Should they still use their Russian surname and keep their accent? And what about the generation of young Russians they are raising - do they eliminate Russian culture from their children’s upbringing and how do they explain to them the truth about where they’re from in years to come?
For Benjenari, the realities are too heartbreaking to think about right now. It’s already been two years since she last saw her family in Moscow and now she doesn’t even want to think about how long it’ll be before she sees them now. Zherebtsova agrees. She’s not spoken to her husband about not being able to see his family in Russia - the prospect is still too raw and “there is a grief in losing that physical connection... It makes me feel homeless, in a sense, like an immigrant”.
As for her family’s identity in the UK, she hasn’t ruled out westernising their accents and surname. She deliberately didn’t when she came to the UK for university in 1998 - many friends did, but she always felt it was important to keep her “quirkiness”. She became president of the Oxford University Russian society and has always blogged about her Russian identity with pride. Now, “there’s a sense of uneasiness to say you’re from Russia - people look at you differently,” says Zherebtsova. Anyone who knows her cannot possibly have missed her opposition to Putin’s war - she has been protesting it loudly the street and on social media. But what about strangers? “Am I really ready to explain my life history and views at every single encounter?” she asks. “I might have to consider [changing my name and accent] for practicality’s sake.”
As for her children, aged three and one, Zherebtsova is relieved that they too young to understand what’s going on right now - kids can be cruel and she worries there’ll be a whole generation of Ukrainians who’ll never see Russians as anything other than evil. She’s already heard stories of “snarly comments” being made by children against their Russian peers in the playground at other schools. Nikitina echoes similar concerns for her own children. At 37, she feels it’s too late to change her own Russian identity, but what about her daughter, Lia, who is 20-months-old? “When she was born, I wanted her to watch Russian films and cartoons... Now it feels awkward,” she says. “I don’t know what I’ll teach her yet, but she’ll be more British than Russian.”
Does she feel sad to be losing her motherland? “I do,” Nikitina says with a sigh. Then again, she, Viktor and their fellow Russian liberals feel they are only losing something that is already lost. It might be three weeks, but Putin’s damage has already been done: “It’s not our motherland anymore.”
