MOSCOW, Russia — Hardly anyone calls the war by any other name anymore.
That was the first impression I got in talking to people in my hometown during a recent visit. TV news—and military recruiting posters plastered all over the city—still diligently use the state-mandated euphemism “special military operation,” a remnant of the early days of the Ukraine invasion. But nearly three years in, Russians know better. They may disagree on how it started, or why, but no one seems to doubt what it fundamentally is: a long, brutal, bloody war.
It’s striking because, in those early days, calling the war by its name was grounds for arrest; now it’s mundane, common knowledge.
I was born and raised in Moscow, and even after moving to New York over a decade ago, I flew back a few times a year to see my family. My visits became much less frequent once the war began; if you’re a journalist, there is always a level of personal risk given the degree of unpredictability and the number of unknowns. But that is more than counterbalanced by the joy of seeing my parents and my aging grandmother. So I made the trip just after Christmas, knowing that I wanted not only to spend time with my family but take the measure of Moscow as the war heads toward its third anniversary.
Over the course of five days in late 2024 and early 2025, I spoke to dozens of people all over the city—in bars, in shops, and on the streets. I talked to college students and retirees, to Moscow residents and visitors here for the holidays.
Some refused to talk to me, but even those who agreed to an on-the-record conversation—with a video camera pointing in their face, no less—were visibly on guard, to a degree I’ve never witnessed before.
Still, under the circumstances, I was stunned by how forthcoming some of them were. Two young women from the west-central city of Naberezhnye Chelny, whom I met a mile from the Kremlin, complained about the “oppressive atmosphere” the war had ushered in, and the heightened level of self-censorship.
“I don’t know if I can say this. Will we be jailed?” one laughed nervously, then went on: “Anyway, you often feel some sort of pressure. I love Russia and the Russians, but not the government.”
As for their attitude about the war, I met only a handful of committed hawks, who sincerely believed in “making Russia great again” through territorial expansion and who advocated for further aggression. I also met some outspoken opponents of war, like those two women from Naberezhnye Chelny.
But the vast majority of people I spoke to were somewhere in between; they would go from rationalizing Russia’s actions in Ukraine to expressing horror at the senseless brutality in a span of a single sentence. The fact that “our guys” are killing “practically their own”—meaning Ukrainians—as one middle-aged woman put it, isn’t lost on anyone.
These contradictions are part of a survival strategy—a product of self-censorship, an attempt to rationalize a horrible situation that feels beyond their control. That sense of helplessness was omnipresent during my conversations; people yearned for peace, for “things getting calmer”; “for our boys coming home and theirs, too”; but they spoke of it in the way they might speak of a miracle—as if that’s what it will take.
I asked at least a half-dozen people for their take on Donald Trump’s promise to broker a peace deal. Many were skeptical, some cautiously optimistic. “What are we supposed to believe in, his words?” one young woman laughed. “That’s crazy. Let’s wait and see.”
“Hoping for the best, preparing for the worst,” her friend added.
To watch the video of Tanya’s interviews in Moscow, click the video above.
