I swim in these circles and there's not much data to confidently say if that's true or not. I'd encourage you to note three (or rather six) groups by their path into, like, EU.
Desperates. People who faced something they don't want for themselves in the Motherland and made sacrifices to leave the swamp asap and settle down on a foreign land.
Privileged. People who didn't sacrifice anything by moving abroad, they can afford it, and probably used some easier ways to become a citizen of X country.
Settled. People with some russian ties or sentimemtal feelings about a country they are safely distanced from, without a fear of deportation.
The percentage of those who love Putin, or rather of those completely unhinged, grows steadily from 1 to 2 and to 3.
The percentage of those who love Putin, or rather of those completely unhinged, grows steadily from 1 to 2 and to 3.
1 are just normal people.
2 are the most evil group in fact, usually indirectly connected to the regime ; it's the kind of elite that was the basis for late 00s and early 10s fake opposition, intended to overshadow the remnants of the old opposition (which was basically the same people who protested in 1991 against Soviet actions in Caucasus and Baltics, against Chechen wars, against Yeltsin's second term). And yes, the loudest virtue-signalling figures of today's Russian opposition are from among them. Many of them still have relatives and friends among Russian elites.
3 are the kind of idiots they have everywhere, Russians of this group are similar to Serbians loving Russia or Americans thinking there's their traditionalist heaven in Russia, or tankies believing China is heaven on earth.
Most Russian-speakers in Germany (which aren't recent Ukrainian refugees) are in category 3 and there's definitely few Putin-fans among them. In a sense it's funny: Most came here directly after the fall of the USSR, passports are trivial to get for diaspora Germans from (ex-)communist countries, not all still spoke German -- and if they did probably some random-ass dialect that noone else understands. Long story short their collective identity was always more a mix of German and USSR than that of any particular republic because they came from all over the place, of course there were Putin-fans among the ones from current-day Russia but the rest set many many straight pretty much day one.
Also flying Z flags gets you straight-up arrested in Germany: Approval of crimes, to wit, a war of aggression.
Plenty of them are middle class or lower. It's not that hard for a Russian citizen to get a work visa in the the EU.
And while half of them understand they are in the EU because Putin's ideology made Russia a shithole, despite having all the means to be a developed country, the other half suffers from a terminal case of cognitive dissonance.
I think its important to differentiate "many" from "majority". I've been to pro-Ukraine anti-Russia demonstrations and there were enough Russians there to convince me that the majority of Russians outside of Russia do not support the invasion. That being said, there are definitely plenty of idiots. In at least one case, I know someone who decided that despite not having lived there for 40 years, that now is the time to develop a sense of patriotism and return... it did not go well.
Source? I only have anecdotal reference, but all the Russian people i know hate Putin for what he has done to their home country. Independent from where i know them, some via work, some via friends and family.
Truth being the Ukraine's Ministry of Defense's side of the conflict?
Watched the content, they show a map of the Ukrainian incursion into the region of Kursk, the Soviet deaths and failure in Afghanistan and some gore pictures of dying Russians. Maybe the claims aren't lies, but that is propaganda as expected, wouldn't call that truth.
I have not seen the footage but I can imagine they elevated the Russian narrative from “special military operations” to “this is a very real war where Russia started to roll into Ukraine where massive amounts of people died, including Russian soldiers”.
If this is the message Ukraine sent to the general public then I support that truth.
So when ruzzian TV informs about the ruzzian gore in eastern Ukraine (several 100-thousand ruzzian soldiers killed or wounded) they tell the truth? Do they inform about that bloody tragedy of their soldiers at all?
This isn't what I said. I associate with truth in such a context as a documentary-Wikipedia style of delivery and already that is quite difficult to do neutral, as sources and claims will diverge, e. g. about losses.
The truth is that war kills people. And Russia started this war. Russia can stop it. Those are hard facts. As hard as the sun is yellow and bright in the day, and the earth is a sphere orbiting the sun. That's not propaganda.
Propaganda is your bullshit pretending that saying the sun is yellow and the earth a sphere are points of view you are free to disagree with.
Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded language to produce an emotional rather than a rational response to the information that is being presented.
From Wikipedia. They didn't send the message war is bad for your health like some insurance disclaimer. The selective content tries to induce fear through the incursion into Kursk and for obvious reasons would have never shown the tense situation after the fall of Avdiivka with regular territorial losses in that area. Presentation of dead soldiers is aimed at inducing an emotional response. The intent is and was foremost to demoralize the enemy. I don't think it's reprehensible in any way. Declaring a few cuts as the truth, when you could have shown the opposite with Avdiivka, should tell you that's naive. Call it what is, a Ukrainian military high jacking of Russian TV.
Your example tries to put science into this and the issue we talk about is a war between two countries. Selectively showing information is scientifically inaccurate for history and social science. Science is a way of course to find the truth in a way, but a process of better descriptions of reality.
They are actually worse now than when it was the communist Soviet Union.
This is closer to Nazism. It may not be much worse, since both are totalitarian.