Tatsiana (the name was changed at her request) was born in Donbas. But she moved to Minsk with her parents when she was still a baby. Now she is hardly in touch with them. Because unlike Tatsiana, her parents support the Russian invasion of Ukraine:

"Now I have her (mother) blocked. My father is also blocked. Under my posts he writes things that couldn't even be said. "Kherson is ours, beat the Banderites, I have foreseen this since '93, I knew the Bandera nits would be beaten up." Both say they are in touch with someone in Donbass and Mariupol, but still send propaganda videos. This is not something that could have been filmed by their on-site acquaintances. It is known that people in Donbas have been watching Russian TV for a long time. When we were in Kyiv, in Lviv in 2019 no one ever prevented us from using the Russian language. It is now that Russia has done everything possible and impossible so that Ukraine and those who love Ukraine have had more weapons and all Ukrainians have united around their language."

Tatsiana says that her parents, who support the Russian invasion of Ukraine, voted for Lukashenka in the 2020 elections:

"After all, my father is only interested in money, and money requires stability. And my mother has never been interested in Belarusian politics. Neither in the "Ploscha-2010", nor in the mysterious missing people and deaths in Belarus. Only in August she woke up to that. It was a ray of hope. But after all, i can’t get it how she, having been convinced now, can still support the government which sponsors this ludicrousness based solely on violence." 

A study conducted by the Royal institute of International Affairs "Chatham House'' in the first weeks of the war shows that Lukashenka’s supporters support the presence of Russian troops in Belarus. However, even they do not agree that the military presence should be increased. At the same time, less than half of the interviewed Belarusians believe that our country is involved in the Russian-Ukrainian military conflict. Many do not view providing the Belarusian territory as participation. And only every fifth admits that Belarus is an aggressor.

Andrej Stryzhak, co-founder of the BYSOL Foundation, says that not only Lukashenka’s electorate support the current war, but even those who voted for his opponents in 2020 and took part in the post-election demonstrations:

"For example, in 2020, part of the society that supported independent candidates had the illusion that Putin would come to bring democracy. A part of these people, a large part, having seen Putin’s reaction to the protests in Belarus and the creation of this operational reserve from the Russian riot police, which was sent to reinforce the Belarusian one if the protests continued and intensified, finally saw the light and saw what Putin's Russia really is, that it cannot bring any freedom at all. But still, there is always some part of the people who are oriented towards Russia. This is exactly the stratum that may have supported the protests because they wanted to replace Lukashenka, but at the same time they accept Russia's actions."

It is not all so clear-cut among long-time Lukashenka’s supporters either, says Andrej Strizhak. According to his observations, they are in favour of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but are not happy with its current outcome. That is why they complain about both the Kremlin and official Minsk:

"If we look at what people write in the so-called patriotic “red-green” chats, we’ll see what they think of the official authorities. Those in favour of Belarus’s participating in the military operation with Russia are also unhappy with what is happening. Because they see that Kyiv has not been taken, despite the fact that all the supply trains were coming from the territory of Belarus, all this support in the form of missile and bombing strikes from the air was provided, but nothing came of it. So these people may have a complaint that the Belarusian army, for example, did not take part in these battles, that it was not fully engaged in the war in order to defeat the imaginary Nazis in Kyiv. So here Lukashenka rather got in such a situation when he did not favour neither his own people and nor his critics'."

According to the survey conducted by the “Chatham House" in the first weeks of the war, only 3% of Belarusians were in favour of taking part in hostilities in Ukraine on Russia's side. A later survey, which was already conducted by the Belarus Analytical Workshop, shows that 11% were in favour of sending Belarusian soldiers to help the Russians. This difference can probably be explained by differences in the survey sample. The first one was conducted among Internet users, while the second one — by telephone.

However, the more unexpected thing was that, when asked "Do you approve of Russia's actions in the current military conflict with Ukraine?", more than 40% of Belarusians responded "yes". The answer to the question who is to blame for this war in the first place was also unexpected, including for the researchers themselves. Andrey Vardamatski, sociologist and head of the Belarusian Analytical Workshop told us about the sociological research:

"As for assessing who is to blame for the war, Russia holds the first position. But not by such a wide margin as the Belarusian and international expert community expected. The United States, for example, comes next, with not a very big difference of 5%, for various reasons - Iraq and Yugoslavia on the one hand; on the other hand, the motivation comes from the fact that the US position is seen by many as indecisive, not consistent, not quick and dynamic enough, and so on. In the field of media, we can talk about the significant influence of Belarusian State TV".

According to sociologist Andrej Vardamatski, the portrait of a Belarusian who supports Russia in the war with Ukraine can be identified in several ways: education, age, place of residence and national identity:

"The higher the educational level, the less positive assessments of the possible entry of Belarusian troops are made. And, it means that Belarusians who identify themselves as Belarusians, again, tend to disapprove the possible entry of Belarusian troops into the territory of Ukraine for military operations".

As for the type of settlement, Minsk stands out from the rest of the country, according to sociologist Vardamatski. In the sense that the capital is more negative about the possible entry of the Belarusian army into Ukraine:

"As for age, this parameter works the same way. The older you are, the higher the percentage that is approved. Although, it's very interesting. This would actually make  a separate conversation. The correlation of historical memory, it would seem that older people should have a more negative attitude towards military actions, war. But in this case it is the opposite. So there is an error of historical memory and media influence, so to speak".

In Russia, according to government polls, three quarters of the population support the "special operation" in Ukraine. However, independent researchers are sceptical about these numbers. Andrey Vardamatski explained why this is the case: 

"So the point is that this is a measurement exactly before the special operation. And it is about the wording of the question that is asked in the Russian polls, which includes a question about the attitude towards the special operation. It is, in general, something different, not a full-scale war. People are not responding about the war, but about the simulation that has developed in their minds as a result of, so to speak, various influences of the media. If we were talking about the war itself, the numbers would certainly be somewhat different, but the majority of the Russian population support what is being carried out by their governing body".

Even according to the independent Levada Centre, the same three quarters of the Russian population support the actions of the Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine. But Levada avoids the word "war" in its surveys, as well as state researchers do. The fact is that back in early March, the Russian authorities passed a law to severely punish the spreading of fakes about the Russian Armed Forces. It means you cannot call war "a war", because there is a "special operation" going on. The word "war" can get you fined or sent to prison for up to 10 years.

Although attention to the events in Ukraine has slightly decreased among Russians, around 60% still follow the situation. According to the Levada Centre, it is mostly elderly people. They are more concerned about the events in Ukraine than the younger generation. Among the things that respondents were most frequently concerned about were "the deaths of civilians and Russian soldiers, destruction, suffering, captivity".

More than half of Russians blame the US and NATO countries for the deaths and destruction in Ukraine, another 17% blame Ukraine itself and only 7% blame Russia. And now pay attention! Two-thirds of Russians believe that the "special operation" is going successfully. Older respondents are the most positive about it. The least confidence in the success of the "special operation" is shown by the 18-24 year old group. Overall, only 17% of Russians are sceptical about their victory in Ukraine.

Russian sociologist Svyatlana Yerpyleva believes that it is hard to portrait a typical supporter of the war in Ukraine. But people can be divided into several conditional groups:

"One group is the so-called audience of state propaganda, which we all know very well. These are people who follow mostly official sources of information, they declare their support for the special operation, they call it so - the special operation, not the war, and they declare their support primarily to the population of Donbas, which from their point of view has suffered from the war for quite a long time. And now Russia will protect them. They believe that Russia's main important mission is to fight the nationalists, fascists (they call them differently) in Ukraine.”

According to Russian state polls, almost 90% of Russians believe there are Nazi formations in Ukraine. Most respondents believe that these formations pose a threat to Russia and its citizens. Meanwhile, according to Ukrainian statistics, support for Ukraine's radical parties has been weakening since 2012. By comparison, the nationalist Svoboda party won 10% of the vote in that year's parliamentary elections, and only 2% in 2019. Another group of people who support the Russian invasion of Ukraine, according to sociologist Svyatlana Yerpyleva, are representatives of the so-called "Russian world".

"You could ironically call them self-taught historians, these are people who are interested in history in some sense, have been following what is happening in Ukraine for quite some time, they didn't start following it now. Their justification for their support is no longer focused on the population of Donbas, for example, or even so much on the nationalists, the fascists, as on the longstanding confrontation between Russia and the West, this geopolitical conflict. They have imperial sympathies, let’s just say. It is important not to call it views. These are not views, these are some sympathies for building a strong Russia that will control the various territories around it."

In another group of supporters of the Russian invasion, the sociologist singles out those who are in some way connected to Donbass: they have relatives there or moved from there to Russia themselves.

"These are people for whom this propaganda narrative about the war for 8 years is just something they are familiar with first-hand, and so they find justification for what is happening because they think that Russia will finally stop this war in Donbas, which has been going on for a long time."

Timur is just one of those who was born in Donbass, has been living in Moscow for several years and supports the Russian invasion of Ukraine:

"Being categorically against the war means that my hometown will remain under fire forever. I have such a dilemma. It is impossible to negotiate with these people, they understand only the language of force. The Ukrainian people are paying the price for their leaders. If you know, Zelensky won in 2019, among other things, because he promised to end the anti-terrorist operation in the east with some kind of peace agreements. And not only did he just fail to keep that promise, he frankly didn't even try to bring them to life."

The state propaganda audience, on the other hand, is suddenly changing their mind. At first, they were very enthusiastic about the war, thinking that it would end in a Russian victory in a matter of days, but when the blitzkrieg failed, this group had some doubts about its position. Svyatlana Yerpyleva told us this:

"They start to admit that maybe there is something they are not telling us here, maybe there are more victims than we think, maybe the reasons are not what they tell us. They have emotions, which change. It is also noticeable. Positive emotions change into emotions of confusion. They may not agree that so many people are dying, but it is no longer possible to hide the fact that civilians are dying. People are dying. Even if the Ukrainians are to blame, from their point of view. However, it was Russia who started this war - people are dying. I feel sorry for them."

Psychologist Anzhelika Lensment explains the mass support for the so-called special operation:

"It's, you know, like children supporting their parents because it's their parents, it's their family and they can’t live without those parents. And citizens of totalitarian, authoritarian regimes often have this feeling that they cannot survive without their regime, they see the regime as a kind of protector. And sometimes it’s based on that feeling. Here, if we're talking about psycho-type, there's a theory that citizens of authoritarian states are brought up having such authoritarian character. A certain psychotype is imposed by the majority. There's white and black in this psychotype. And the white is ours, and the black is others'."

According to Lavada Centre, support for the so-called special operation among Russians has declined over the month, although only slightly (by 7%). Some experts also attribute this to the sanctions, which Russians have already felt. However, according to the Belarusian independent researchers, our compatriots are more reacting to the economic consequences of the war for themselves than to the war itself. Almost a half of respondents said that the economic situation of their families had worsened over the last month.