Photo Gallery A Country in Lockstep
Some 80 percent of Russians back President Vladimir Putin's controversial actions in Crimea and Ukraine. They also have a penchant for believing the media, which has often published Kremlin propaganda in recent months as fact. "Many believe the reports coming out of Ukraine -- and that is dangerous," warns journalist Nikolai Epple of the newspaper Vedomosti. "It gives you the feeling that something terrible is happening in modern-day Russia."
Pro-Russian militiamen ride atop combat vehicles in Slovyansk in eastern Ukraine on Wednesday. Few Russian newspapers are reporting about how militias in eastern Ukraine are obtaining their weapons or from whom they are taking their orders -- often enough from Russians who have traveled to the region, as one of the few critical publications has noted.
Oddly, even large parts of the Putin opposition have mouthed support for recent actions. Sergei Udaltsov, pictured here before he was placed under house arrest in 2013, let it be known that, "I am a spporter of direct democracy, and I welcome the Crimea referendum as an expression of popular government."
Blogger and opposition politician Alexei Navalny has also voiced his support. Navalny is also under house arrest. Despite his situation, he said he believed Crimea had been given to Ukraine by Kurshchev in 1954 in an act of "unlawful arbitrariness." The act still offends normal Russians today, he said. "To hell with Crimea," he told Ukrainians. "Why do you need it, anyway?"
Other supporters of annexation and Putin's course include star conductor Valery Gergiev.
Those who have been critical have fallen under deep scrutiny. Historian Andrey Zubov recently lost his professorship at an elite university after comparing Putin's annexation of Crimea to Hitler's Anchluss of Austria.
