“I Don’t Give a Damn”
Russian Public Opinion toward Sanctions
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
Western sanctions against representatives of Russia have been in force since the autumn of 2012. At the time, the United States was reacting to the “Magnitskii case”. After Russia’s annexation of Crimea, the start of the war in eastern Ukraine, and the downing of a passenger plane over the war zone, the EU and the United States imposed several rounds of sanctions. In Russia, the public has limited knowledge of the background to the sanctions. State media portray them as evidence of hostility on the part of the West, which, it is said, seeks to defeat and humiliate Russia. Most people in Russia receive the sanctions with indifference or contempt. Sanctions play a marginal role in public opinion.
(Osteuropa, 10-12/2021, pp. 252–262)