
What do Russians want in 2025? | BBC News
BBC News- 107 views
- 31 Dec 2024
In his New Year address, Vladimir Putin has told Russians that the country will move forward with confidence in 2025 and that he's ...
It's nearly three years since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. I wonder what Russians are thinking now about what's happening, about where their country is going, and what they're hoping for in 2025.
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How do you think? How to reach this world?
I hope that the war will end. That's the main thing. I'm really worried about the fact that we didn't start to put it on the New Year's table. There's no problem.
I'm working on it.
To make the war end. And we won.
How to make the war end?
The war? Yeah.. And what is victory? Victory? When all die, when there are no need for people, then there is victory. And the no need for people, who is it? And those who want the war to continue.
And who is it?
Those who are far away.
Where?
Not in Russia. We trust Putin. But we need to do more of the economy of the country, as the American President said. Here, we have a lot... How do you say? We are very few, in particular me. I have a pension of $14,000. $14,000? Yes. How do you live in 14? I'm working with my dad. He helps me. I have to work. I'm 74 years old.
Who do you work with?
I work as a courier on the delivery of documents. I would need to work. Why? Because in this sense, not me alone. There's a lot of people like that. The situation is so difficult. We'll be hoping for Putin, that he promised to increase pensioners' pension. It's possible. It's not for me to decide. If I was a chief of the provincial government, I would have said, I have to do this. But with me, no one is counting me. I'm a retired pensioner. I have 74 years old. Can people, can people, can influence their lives, their future? Our people are patient. They are silent.
Well, this is Gorky Park. One difference I've noticed from a couple of years back. In December 2022, along with the traditional tree, there were giant letter zets, the symbol of the so-called Special Military Operation. This year, no zeds, no slogans. It's all very traditional. It's a similar story in Siberia, actually. Two years ago in the city of Chita, among all the New Year declarations, I remember seeing ice sculptures of Russian soldiers holding Kalashnikov rifles. This year, there's nothing like that there. I think that after three years of war, Russians don't want to be reminded of this war. And I think the authorities sense that, which is why this new year, it's more snowmen than soldiers. But you cannot simply tinsel over a war or its consequences..
That's the most important, that the HACCPO is finished. And all this is forgotten, and that everyone is united, and that everyone is still alive. That's the most important for me, at least, in the new year. Because this nervousness, and this misunderstanding of what is happening, what will be next, how it all is going to be, it increases the level of anxiety. We trust our chief of command, and he makes some decisions. He makes them for us.. I think we need to sit down with some rational people, sit down with a roundtable of discussion, and discuss, and get to make a deal. There's no other option. Only through a communication, a person can reach something rational. With weapons, nothing will help.
In this year, for you, what.
So even after three years of sanctions, as you can see, there's still a lot of food on the shelves.
But it's the prices that are the problem, inflation is a problem. Inflation is a problem. So for example, this year in Russia, the price of potatoes has gone up by 88 %, the price of butter by 35 %. And there, in fact, have been lots of reports of people stealing butter from crops, which is probably why in this supermarket, they're selling some butter in special security anti-theft boxes. Some Muscovites are not just looking ahead to the new year, to the future. They're remembering the past, commemorating the 45th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
At this event, lots of references have been made to Russian soldiers who are fighting today in Ukraine, and the The speeches here very much reflect the Kremlin narrative that the war in Ukraine is the fault of the West, even though it was Russia that launched the full-scale invasion of its neighbor..
So as Russia enters the new year, my overriding impression is this. When I was a student here in Moscow in 1989, 1990, I remember that there were a lot of people then who believed they had the power to change their lives, change their country for the better. That's gone now, whether because of fear or through fatalism, or because there are still a lot of people who believe the picture of events as painted by the state media. Many Russians are willing to leave it to the man at the top to decide their future.