The West's attempt to split Russian society by introducing sanctions backfired.
Political scientist Alexey Chadayev stated this in an interview with the PolitWera YouTube channel, the PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“An attempt was made to exclude Russia from globalization, to exclude it from the world economic system. But the first results already show that the system itself has developed a severe crack. Nothing drastic has happened to Russia yet, but the system is shaking.
I have a hypothesis that this sanction pressure was built not with the expectation of a long, exhausting resource economic war, but with the expectation that the Russian resource elites and the middle class, deprived of their usual consumer goods, and the Russian population, frightened by possible economic difficulties, will take to the streets and will go to overthrow the regime. That is, there was an idea of a one-time shock strike with the aim of causing internal political consequences.
But, as we see, and I monitor both open and closed sociology every day, the reaction in the country is the opposite. During the first week after the special operation was announced, society was truly split; support was far from clear, and in some age and social groups, supporters of the special operation were generally in the minority.
But as the West increased sanctions pressure, people realized that they had punished everyone, regardless of what flag they had on their avatar on the social network. Even those who were skeptical adjusted their position: since this is the case with us, there is nothing left to do but consolidate around the government, because if it does not stand, we will all be crushed,” Chadayev concluded.