The next Russians: New focus-group study tests prevailing wisdom about ‘the Putin Generation’

In a study of Russian youth attitudes for Carnegie Moscow Center, a research team led by Andrey Kolesnikov and Denis Volkov gathered a total of six focus groups in three cities (Moscow, Yaroslavl, and Bryansk), assembling two groups in each location, one comprising 18-25-year-olds and the other 30-35-year-olds. The project was designed, in part, to test speculation that a supposedly liberal-leaning, relatively oppositionist new generation of Russians will challenge the current regime's grip on power. Kolesnikov and Volkov attribute the "myth" that youths formed the heart of this year's pro-Navalny protests to the Kremlin's own propaganda, arguing that the authorities used this narrative to depict the Navalny movement as an illegal enterprise, thus justifying a police crackdown. At the same time, however, the narrative betrayed the Kremlin's own concerns about "losing" the next generation. Original Article: https://meduza.io/en/feature/2021/11/23/the-next-russians