ZEIT ONLINE: What’s it like for people who oppose the war and the government but have decided to stay in Russia?

Schulmann: One feels a kind of envy, perverse as it may seem, for people who are both able to be at home and also brave enough to speak up. Certainly, the large-scale emigration has made the situation at home worse. Fewer voices, just less presence. Even if you don’t say anything, but people know you are there, it’s something. I recently talked to a friend in St Petersburg and she said: „You are miserable and I am afraid.“ That’s the difference between staying and leaving.

ZEIT ONLINE: The repression, though, seems to be working. Early in the war, there were protests. Now, we hardly see any at all. Is there any anti-war movement left?

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ZEIT ONLINE: Russian casualties have been very high thus far. To what degree has the Russian population noticed?

Schulmann: The situation is different from the late 1990s and early 2000s, when Russia suffered losses in Chechnya. And it’s different from when the Soviet Union suffered losses in Afghanistan. Back then, people from all classes and all regions served in the army. Of course, Moscow residents and the privileged classes had more opportunities to get their sons out of conscription. But still, it was a universal duty. So when coffins started coming back into the country, it was known to large circles.

Today it’s different. For years, the army has provided a social lift for those with no other resources. To put it bluntly, poor people’s children serve in the army. There are also regional disparities: among the casualties, there’s a huge disproportion in favor of soldiers from national republics and poorer regions. We hear of relatively few casualties from Moscow and St. Petersburg, more from Dagestan, Buryatya and Tyva. This disparity has, for the moment, prevented the appearance of something like the Soldiers‘ Mothers movement we saw in the 1990s. The families of these people are very poor.