I am sure there are true believers out there but I mean among the general population of other countries, especially reporters. I put about as much stock in interviews with average Russians as I do the North Korean equivalent. There's enough social pressure to conform that even those who disagree with the narrative are unlikely to say so on camera.

[–] Tuuktuuk@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 hour ago

While hitchhiking to China, SEA and India in 2015, I spent 2 months in Ukraine. It became such a long time because I fell in love there and started a relationship with a girl living there. Then, I bought her plane tickets to India and continued my way by hitchhiking. So, I spent several weeks hitchhiking in the Russia after having been a considerable time in Ukraine.

More than every other driver who gave me a ride told me about how Ukraine is a "dangerous place", "full of bandits on all roads" and especially how "Russian-speakers are treated very badly". I kept telling them that my girlfriend was a Russian-speaker, that I lived a normal everyday life in a city where quite precisely half of the people were Ukrainian-speakers and my friends lived their life exclusively in Russian language, with zero problems ever. Even when I was visiting Zakarpattja, where less than 5% of people speak Russian as their mother tongue, there was no problem at all from my friends speaking Russian.

But the Russian drivers... When I told them that my experience contradicts what they were telling, not even one of them said anything along the lines of "oh, interesting to know!" Instead, they kept telling me that I was wrong. I was told numerous times that the Ukrainians had only shown me what they wanted me to see. When I told them that I had spent a lot of time doing things by myself, and travelled between cities by myself, they said: "They didn't let you see everything". It was very clear that they were defending their own sanity by refusing to see things in any other way than the official truth. It was not that they were afraid to speak their mind, it was very clearly that they were afraid to accept incorrect thinking creep in their minds!

[–] Jumi@lemmy.world 2 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Propaganda is such an unbelievably strong tool. Just look at the Western world with its seemingly unlimited access to information, knowledge and education and how easily people are convinced of some bullshit.

Russia was never a "free" country but stumbled from one autocracy into the next while the uneducated peasants stayed mostly uneducated peasants through the centuries.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 2 points 4 hours ago

In retrospect, the "information age" should be renamed to the "disinformation age."