MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Today marks a thousand days since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of its neighbor Ukraine.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
The war forced the displacement of millions of Ukrainians from their homes and led to the death and maiming of hundreds of thousands of civilians and soldiers. But the war has, of course, also brought immense changes to life in Russia.
MARTIN: NPR's Moscow correspondent, Charles Maynes, is going to talk about this. He's reported out of Russia since the beginning of the conflict. Hello, Charles.
CHARLES MAYNES, BYLINE: Good morning.
MARTIN: So Charles, I take it the question isn't whether Russia has changed as a result of the war but how much.
MAYNES: Yeah, you know, the truth is this war's transformed Russia completely - everything from its geopolitics, you know, where once Russia sought acceptance - albeit often angrily - from the West. Now it has military alliances with rogue states like Iran and North Korea. Also, look at its domestic political culture. You know, Russia under President Vladimir Putin was never a liberal democracy. But the repressions and near-total crushing of dissent since the war started make the earlier Putin era seem comparatively free.
And then there's the economy. Today, Russia is the world's most sanctioned state, but those are largely Western-imposed sanctions. Big-name Western companies like McDonald's, Apple, Starbucks have all left Russia. But the country has pivoted to new markets and new trade partners, often in China. So the result is that what you eat, what you buy, what you say, read and watch, it's all changed.
MARTIN: That sounds kind of disorienting. Do we have a sense of what Russians think about this? Is there any way to know if they really support the war and how they feel about all the changes it's brought?
MAYNES: Well, the government claims that Russian society is united behind the war effort. Some state polls will show the same, although keep in mind the repressions that we mentioned. And through reporting, I've certainly met people who clearly buy into Kremlin propaganda that this is a war against fascism, that Ukraine is run by neo-Nazis. And they see it as a continuation of the Soviet Union's fight against Nazi Germany in World War II. For example, here's tape from a conversation I had with a man named Andrei Nikolaevich, who I met on Red Square last year.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
ANDREI NIKOLAEVICH: We have already had once this victory in 1945. And we expect peace, but peace should be with victory over the Nazis, new Nazis who occupied all the country of Ukraine.
MAYNES: Do you worry about Russian forces killing other people, though, like, innocent civilians, too?
NIKOLAEVICH: No, it's all fake because we don't kill human beings that are peaceful. We kill only the soldiers.
MAYNES: You know, Michel, that said, let's remember, tens of thousands of Russians fled the country in opposition to the war. Thousands more have gone to jail for civil disobedience. And in conversations I've had just day to day, people who aren't government critics or politically active tell me they just wish the whole thing would end.
MARTIN: And of course, now President-elect Trump will be returning to the White House. He's promised to negotiate with Putin. He says he will quickly end the war. How is this seen from Russia? Are there prospects of peace seen from Russia?
MAYNES: Well, I think it's fair to say there's a surging confidence in Moscow with Trump's suggestions he could end military support to Ukraine. President Putin this morning formally approved changes to Russia's nuclear doctrine expanding the list of threats that might warrant a nuclear response from Moscow. It was a clear message to President Biden's decision this week to allow Ukraine to use American long-range missiles to strike deep inside Russia and, I think, one that raises the question of whether Putin has any intention of compromise going forward.
MARTIN: That is NPR's Charles Maynes in Moscow. Charles, thank you.
MAYNES: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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