The 1420 project by Daniil Orain interviews Russian citizens on the street about their thoughts on various issues, with the emphasis being primarily on Russia's war against Ukraine.
When asked in the latest video how they view the Ukrainian invasion of the Kursk region, some Russians admitted that they were shocked by what had happened. For the first time since World War II, a foreign army invaded Russia, a huge humiliation for Vladimir Putin's regime.
„To be honest, I was shocked (by the invasion) because we positioned ourselves as the second army in the world and we should be able to defend our own territory first before trying to take over someone else's,” said 35-year-old Maxim .
Vyacheslav, 36 years old, states that “something went wrong somewhere and this should not have happened”. Ulyana, 28, is even more eloquent – what happened in the Kursk region is “fucked”, said the young woman.
The Kremlin-controlled Russian media is contributing to the confusion among the Russian population. They simultaneously tell them that "everything is under control", but also that there is an "existential threat to Russia", with which they try to shift the blame for the war to Kiev and the Western countries. These mutually exclusive claims confuse the Russian population, which during the full-scale war lives in an information bubble. In Russia, it is even forbidden to use the word war instead of "special military operation".