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13 мая 2024 г. на сайте «Russia Today» опубликована статья ведущего научного сотрудника Центра международной безопасности ИМЭМО РАН к.и.н. Дмитрия Тренина «A massive transformation is taking place in Russia, and the West is blind to it». Социальные преобразования в России, начавшиеся до начала специальной военной операции на Украине в начале 2022 года, теперь кажутся необратимыми.

Two and a half years into its war against the West in Ukraine, Russia certainly finds itself on a course toward a new sense of itself.

This trend actually predated the military operation but has been powerfully intensified as a result. Since February 2022, Russians have lived in a wholly new reality. For the first time since 1945, the country is really at war, with bitter fighting ongoing along a 2,000-kilometer front line, and not too far from Moscow. Belgorod, a provincial center near the Ukrainian border, is continuously subjected to deadly missile and drone attacks from Kiev's forces.

Occasionally, Ukrainian drones reach far deeper inland. Yet, Moscow and other big cities continue as if there were no war, and (almost) no Western sanctions either. Streets are full of people and shopping malls and supermarkets offer the usual abundance of goods and food items. One could conclude that Moscow and Belgorod are a tale of two countries, that Russians have managed to live simultaneously both in wartime and peacetime.

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