VIDEO | WAR IN UKRAINE
Do Russians still support Putin’s war in Ukraine?
Their web searches suggest perhaps not — and the CIA is closing in on potential spy recruits
A University of Cambridge study looked at data collected since 2002 by Google and Yandex, a Russian search engine
The Times
The happiness of the Russian public fell sharply last year after the invasion of Ukraine, according to analysis of their internet searches by a team from the University of Cambridge.
The research also found that web searches linked to anti-war sentiment and opposition to President Putin surged in Russia during the first months of the war, and increased again when his regime resorted to mass military conscription.
The analysis suggests that by April of this year, the public mood in Russia was at its lowest ebb since the invasion began in February last year. Over the past decade, it appears that Russians were more miserable only during the very worst of the country’s coronavirus crisis in 2021.
However, the results also suggest that the West’s
