How 4 years of Ukraine warfare have modified Russia | Russia-Ukraine warfare Information

[ad_1] Practically 4 years in the past, Russian President Vladimir Putin introduced on nationwide TV that the nation’s armed forces had begun a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The warfare, recognized by its official euphemism of “particular army operation” (SMO), has now lasted longer than Russia’s involvement in World Struggle II from 1941 to 1945. Russian fight deaths, verified by the BBC and the impartial Russian outlet MediaZona, have now topped 186,000 – almost 13 times the Purple Military’s losses throughout your entire Eighties warfare in Afghanistan, which lasted a decade and included troopers from throughout the Soviet Union.

However whereas thousands and thousands of Ukrainian refugees have fled and people who stay courageous a bitter winter as Russian missiles batter the nation’s vitality infrastructure, how have the previous 4 years modified Russia? Al Jazeera spoke with folks inside and out of doors the nation to find out how life has modified since February 24, 2022.

<img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" class="size-arc-image-770 wp-image-4329291" src="https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/AP23327635186966-1771758797.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C513&quality=80" alt="People buy fruits at a hypermarket in Moscow, Russia, on Nov. 3, 2023. The shelves at Moscow supermarkets are full of fruit and vegetables, cheese and meat. But many of the shoppers look at the selection with dismay as inflation makes their wallets feel empty. (AP Photo)" fetchpriority="low"/> Individuals purchase produce at a hypermarket in Moscow on November 3, 2023 [AP Photo] Life goes on Areas of western Russia bordering Ukraine, such because the Kursk and Belgorod areas, have come below artillery barrages , drone strikes and even floor incursions from Ukrainian forces with a part of Kursk falling below Ukrainian control quickly.

“Simply over a yr in the past while Ukrainian forces had been nonetheless on this area, you’d get strikes a number of occasions per day,” mentioned 25-year-old Ben Higginbottom, better-known as YouTuber Ben the Brit , who moved to Kursk together with his Russian spouse in 2021.

“I believe what may shock folks is how used to it locals turned and me included in that. No person ran to shelters with every strike. In any other case, you’d by no means have the ability to dwell your life. You’d all the time be in there.”

Based on the native information web site Fonar.tv , not less than 458 civilians have been killed in Ukrainian assaults on the Belgorod area because the warfare started.

However main metropolises, akin to Moscow and St Petersburg, have barely felt the warfare whereas the sanctions imposed by Ukraine’s Western allies are mere inconveniences.

“It’s so costly. I’m in shock,” mentioned Andrey, a 30-year-old Muscovite.

“It’s identical to Europe – all people’s complaining concerning the costs there too. Even should you solely purchase some beer, cigs and chocolate, you continue to wind up spending not less than 1,000 roubles [$13] on the retailer. However in Moscow, folks’s buying energy hasn’t clearly fallen a lot. Children are crowded in traces at grocery store cafes. The entire metropolis is filled with taxi drivers and limitless supply drivers.”

Some issues have modified.

“It turned very problematic to seek out some manufacturers that you just used to purchase earlier than,” mentioned Kirill F, a 39-year-old photographer from St Petersburg who requested that his full identify not be disclosed.

“They are often discovered from resellers, however they’ve turn out to be dearer, they usually’re not bought in shops,” he mentioned. Some South Korean manufacturers have returned to Russia, he mentioned. LG washing machines and fridges at the moment are obtainable once more.

Chinese language manufacturers are additionally obtainable, however they're “not nearly as good high quality because the tech we used to get from Germany or Poland”, Kirill mentioned.

To get round abroad cost restrictions due to Western sanctions, for instance on apps, Kirill opened a checking account in Kyrgyzstan. It’s not an insurmountable impediment however an annoyance, he mentioned.

However Kirill is much less sanguine concerning the restrictions imposed by his personal authorities. Since 2022, the Kremlin has launched strict laws penalising what it calls “pretend information” concerning the invasion. Moreover, the authorities have blocked social media akin to Instagram and Fb and made it tougher to make use of WhatsApp, Telegram and YouTube, selling state-backed options such RuTube and the messaging app Max as an alternative.

“At first, we had been blocked from utilizing Fb, however we had few folks utilizing it they usually simply put in VPNs, after which YouTube was banned,” Kirill recounted.

“For abnormal residents, this blockage simply worsens life. That’s all. Youthful folks understand it as a violation of their private life, and they'll develop up hating the state.”

<img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" class="size-arc-image-770 wp-image-4329293" src="https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/2026-02-19T060219Z_1167010498_RC2QNJALIN58_RTRMADP_3_UKRAINE-CRISIS-RUSSIA-ECONOMY-1771758924.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C474&quality=80" alt="A woman walks past a shopping mall at the Moscow International Business Centre, also known as Moskva-City, in Moscow, Russia February 17, 2026. REUTERS/Ramil Sitdikov" fetchpriority="low"/> A shopping center on the Moscow Worldwide Enterprise Centre, also called Moskva-Metropolis, in Moscow on February 17, 2026 [Ramil Sitdikov/Reuters] Opinions concerning the warfare Opinion polls constantly discover the warfare enjoys widespread support among the many public though analysts cautioned that legal guidelines criminalising antiwar sentiment make it onerous to guage the accuracy of those polls.

The brother of 30-year-old Vladislav from Saratov in southwestern Russia enlisted as a drone pilot within the Russian forces a month in the past. The Russian army now attracts plenty of recruits by beneficiant pay packets fairly than counting on conscripts.

“At first, I assumed [the war] was fallacious, like what ‘denazification’ are you speaking about?” Vladislav advised Al Jazeera by way of Telegram earlier than rapidly deleting his messages. The Kremlin has described the Ukrainian management below President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as pro-Nazi, and has insisted that its army operation is pushed by a need to “denazify” Ukraine.

“However then the Ukrainian aspect began posting images of swastikas, SS skulls and different symbols of fascist ideology,” Vladislav mentioned, referring to symbols which have appeared on some Ukrainian troopers’ uniforms and unit flags. “… Each my grandparents had been WWII veterans; might they relaxation in peace.”

Now, he mentioned, he agrees with Russia’s warfare on Ukraine. “Zelenskyy and his whole fascist fraternity have to be destroyed, no extra prisons. … I hope my brother will make an enormous contribution,” he added. “He’s an important man, a wonderful driver, and the truth that he spent a lot time enjoying simulation video games will assist him defeat each Nazi scum in Ukraine.”

Kirill, too, had his doubts concerning the invasion, contemplating the outbreak of warfare a failure of Russian diplomacy, and nonetheless shakes his head when he sees Russian pro-war symbols in public.

However as time went on, his angle in the direction of each peace and liberals grew extra jaded.

“We learn each the international press and the liberal analysts, who advised us the Russian economic system had two weeks left, but right here we're 4 years later, and all the things’s nice. What do you assume our angle might be in the direction of the individuals who advised us such issues?” he requested rhetorically.

“I consider that because it’s already begun, we have to go all the way in which to victory,” Kirill added. “In case you began a combat, you'll be able to’t simply say ‘I’m sorry’ and cease. That's to say, I don’t help [the invasion], however I additionally don’t help reparations, all this nonsense. Nobody will go for it. Even amongst those that are towards the warfare, they don’t need to lose fully as a result of their lives might be adversely affected.”

Then there’s the query of apathy. Traditionally, many Russians have involved themselves extra with day-to-day survival than the machinations of energy, a development that has continued with the “particular army operation”.

“Everybody’s in denial. Virtually everybody in my circles is staunchly apolitical and tries to disregard the information,” Andrey noticed.

<img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" class="size-arc-image-770 wp-image-4329297" src="https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/AP24222450478643-1771759053.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C513&quality=80" alt="Emergency workers and soldiers push a damaged car after a Russian missile hit a supermarket in Kostiantynivka, Donetsk region, Ukraine, Friday, Aug. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Iryna Rybakova)" fetchpriority="low"/> Emergency crews and troopers work on the web site of a Russian missile strike on a grocery store in Kostiantynivka within the Donetsk area of japanese Ukraine [File: Iryna Rybakova/AP Photo] Going AWOL However denial is not possible for some.

Seeing the carnage up shut made Alexander Medvedev* change his thoughts. Having accomplished each his nationwide service, a 12-month necessary draft, and a earlier deployment to Syria, the 38-year-old trucker from Kemerovo in Siberia was mobilised into the elite Ural Battalion, the place he was assigned the submit of machinegunner in a help platoon.

“We’d been advised for years that all the things in Ukraine was steeped in Nazism and hatred of Russia and Russians,” he advised Al Jazeera.

“On the time, I assumed and assumed this was a punitive operation aimed on the regime in that nation than on the Ukrainian folks as a complete.”

By January 2023, Medvedev’s unit entered the Luhansk area of japanese Ukraine, establishing base in an deserted mine. Medvedev thought-about himself fortunate to have been assigned to a help platoon as a result of the assault squads “suffered 60 or 70 % casualties in an hour of fight”.

Travelling by war-torn Ukrainian villages and talking with the locals, Medvedev started questioning his mission. “The realisation that I used to be preventing a warfare that nobody wanted, that will deliver no good to anybody on this world however would solely produce a mountain of corpses, widows, orphans and depressing moms and dads haunted me,” he advised Al Jazeera.

On July 7, 2023, he went AWOL and tried to return to his hometown.

“For the primary few months after returning, I didn’t perceive what was happening round me in any respect. There was a warfare someplace, however right here in Siberia or the Urals, folks had been residing as if nothing was taking place.”

Dealing with felony indictment for abandoning his submit, Medvedev contacted the organisation Get Lost , which helps draft dodgers and deserters. With its assist, he escaped overseas.

“I miss my homeland very a lot. I hope to return however to a unique nation the place folks will start to worth and cherish peace.”

<img data-recalc-dims="1" loading="lazy" class="size-arc-image-770 wp-image-4329307" src="https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/2023-02-16T120904Z_498227789_RC2WBZ93O3XE_RTRMADP_3_UKRAINE-CRISIS-ANNIVERSARY-GEORGIA-RUSSIANS-1771759197.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C511&quality=80" alt="Georgian citizen and teacher Miriam Nozadze conducts a Georgian language lesson for Russian exiles in Tbilisi, Georgia, February 15, 2023. REUTERS/Irakli Gedenidze" fetchpriority="low"/> Georgian citizen and instructor Miriam Nozadze conducts a Georgian language lesson for Russian exiles in Tbilisi, Georgia, on February 15, 2023 [Irakli Gedenidze/Reuters] ‘Get the hell out’ Within the first yr of the warfare, consultants estimated that about two million Russians left their motherland. Amongst them had been younger males fearing they'd be conscripted and despatched to the entrance traces in addition to these with deeply held anti-Putin convictions, akin to 35-year-old Mike* from Russia’s fourth largest metropolis.

Mike packed one small bag and determined “to get the hell out of Yekaterinburg”.

Mike has since settled in Berlin, the place he’s concerned in an activist neighborhood serving to these nonetheless within the nation. However he’s grown disillusioned with each the West and the liberal Russian opposition.

“The genocide in Gaza performed in entrance of our very eyes with the clear complicity of Western elites shattered no matter illusions one might have concerning the Western powers serving to Ukraine,” he sighed.

If the West isn’t able to intervene extra straight, Mike mentioned, then a compromise appears extra cheap, even when that primarily means a defeat for Ukraine.

“After 4 years, the state of affairs appears to be like actually bleak, and this winter in Ukraine, Putin’s regime confirmed its most cynical, fully inhumane nature by destroying civic infrastructure all throughout the nation. That tells you a large number about how far they will go in pursuing their objectives.”

Due to difficulties becoming in or discovering work of their host nations, many Russian emigres have since returned dwelling. Rising anti-immigrant sentiment, together with in Germany, isn’t serving to.

“Life is sweet, however I’m an increasing number of aware of my immigration standing,” Mike mentioned. “I didn’t plan on leaving [Russia], however I’m not fantasising about returning.”