SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
We wanted to hear more on how people inside Russia are responding to Ukraine's attacks, so we've called Nina Khrushcheva. She's a professor of international affairs at The New School in New York, and she's a great-granddaughter of Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev. She joins me now from Moscow. Good morning.
NINA KHRUSHCHEVA: Good morning.
PFEIFFER: I understand you've been in Moscow for two months and had last been there in March. How would you say the mood has shifted between your two visits?
KHRUSHCHEVA: It is, and it's shifted a little bit. Thank you for this question. I think there's more understanding, kind of resignation that the war is going to go forever. And you just mentioned - your correspondent just mentioned the Yabloko Party - the Apple Party - that suddenly got a lot of support, although before, it seemed like it was a nothing party kind of living off the Soviet days because it began early in the Soviet - late Soviet era.
So the mood is resignation. The mood is annoyance with the war. But also, as your correspondent mentioned, there is a lot of - repressions are increasing, and therefore, people are more fearful of how much they can really speak freely about their own needs and wants. And obviously their gas lines and their Wildberries being attacked, so economy is not doing great. So there's a lot of, as I said, resignation to what's to come.
PFEIFFER: I think many Americans wonder - I wonder - what kind of access to news, facts, information Russians have. You know, what propaganda they're hearing, what's a news blackout. How informed do you think Russians are about what's really happening?
KHRUSHCHEVA: Whoever wants to be informed - well, I'm speaking to you from Moscow, so whoever wants to be informed is informed. And that's another part of very - in my view, very unsuccessful Putin's propaganda, even if they say it is successful - very unsuccessful because Russians, there are many young - very young people. There are 13-, 16- - 15-, 16-year-olds now want to support the Yabloko Party - the Apple Party.
And films are available. I mean, there was a great dispute and kind of boycott of a Russian fairy-tale that just came out because it conflicts with "Spider-Man," and there was an online debate about this. You can see all Western films. Some of them are not official. You still can. Via VPN, you can get access to all world news. Some Russian publications are actually quite open. I mean, they're not critical of the state, but they do say things that need to be said. So they do have that. And if you want to have access to the world, you absolutely can have it. It's getting harder and harder because the state is getting more and more fearful that all this animosity towards the war, the unsupport (ph) of the war is going to come up - come out more openly.
PFEIFFER: Well, you mentioned that Russians think it will last forever, a feeling of animosity and resignation, dissent is put down. So what, if anything, can they do? Do Russians feel that they have any power to speak out and make a difference?
KHRUSHCHEVA: Pretty much not. I mean, I think that's why, in some ways, they are sort of ignoring the war and despite the gas lines, despite the blowing up of the marketplaces, despite the fact that there - I think in the last months there were - about 300 people died, which is more than in many months before in Russia, in the territory of Russia. So they can't.
And at the same time, I think the Yabloko - the Apple Party - case was fascinating because suddenly, the day they were being - kind of the hearings whether the party can take part in the September parliamentary elections, suddenly there were about a thousand people in the streets. That takes courage because there were police van. There's a lot of police.
Now there is another hearing today. Police is taking away these very young people just because they don't want them. So people feel they can't speak, but if they need to speak, some of them actually can have it. And I think that's why the state is so afraid of them, because it tries to preempt anything that the Russians might do. So in my view, repressions will only increase.
PFEIFFER: You recently called for a new leader to take over like your great-grandfather, Nikita Khrushchev. He, of course, succeeded Joseph Stalin. He launched a campaign of de-Stalinization. Do you think Russian citizens would get behind that? And who might they have in mind, if so?
KHRUSHCHEVA: Well, I want to push back a little bit. I didn't call for the new leader. I just said that when this leader is over, the new leader will come, and it will be a choice between somebody like Khrushchev, who would denounce Stalin, or somebody even from Putin's entourage or Stalin's entourage who would still be much more rational about the states of the world today.
PFEIFFER: That is Nina Khrushcheva. She is a professor of international affairs at New York's New School and she has been speaking with us from Moscow. Thank you very much.
KHRUSHCHEVA: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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