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Personally I don't know anybody who supports the war, and I have thousands of Facebook friends, whatever. But that doesn't mean they don't exist and even independent surveys
unfortunately show the majority of the population probably supports this war They get all their information from the television run by the state, which doesn't even call it a war,
it's now a special military operation. It's a criminal offence to call it a war, so people are now being prosecuted for just writing on the walls ‘no to war’, because it's
considered misinformation. Street protests have been dismantled by the government, killed over the last five, six years. Basically people who can organise protests effectively are either in
jail or abroad. This is just self organisation, there are no leaders. This is done through social media. Unfortunately, there are not many of them - there are maybe 10,000 all over the
country, definitely not enough to dethrone Putin. But these are people that are basically used to that kind of stuff, they have been going on the streets for years, for different reasons.
When Navalny was jailed, they spontaneously demonstrated, without a lot of coordination. There were some posts from Navalny’s Instagram but, frankly, I don't think that counts as
organisation. This is mostly spontaneous. People who are against the war are devastated, like me. My life as I knew it ended 10 days ago. I feel everything I have been doing for the past 20
years was for nothing. Rationally I know that's not true but I feel that way, it's horrible. At the very heart of it, it's about "be kind, don't be evil, don't
wage wars", very elementary stuff. And now, we're in the reality where I am learning not to call Russia my country. I am not optimistic at all about getting the message across. My
mother is against the war, and I'm very fortunate in this because I know many people who have really tough conversations. I know somebody to whom their father said: “You're not my
son anymore, because you support these Nazis in Ukraine” and all this propaganda that he heard on the TV. He is more willing to believe the television than his own son. Of course, I and
hundreds of other journalists, some from Russia, mostly from abroad, will continue to write the truth - but honestly, I don't think there is a great chance it matters. Tens of millions
of people support the war because they watch television. The only thing we can do right now is to face the reality, which is very harsh. * _ALEKSANDR GORBACHEV IS A WRITER, EDITOR AND
FILMMAKER WHO HAS WORKED EXTENSIVELY IN INDEPENDENT RUSSIAN MEDIA._