Two years of Special Military Operation: Dynamics of changes in the attitude of youth

The article presents results of a study of young people’s attitude towards the Special Military Operation (hereinafter – the SMO). Data from monthly measurements carried out from March 2022 to January 2024 by Levada Center (recognized as a foreign agent in Russia), as well as the results of two online surveys (n = 2872) and a series of focus group interviews of young people (n = 74) conducted in November 2022 and November 2023 by employees of the Department of Political Science of Saratov State University are analyzed. It turned out that young people assess what is happening more moderately than society as a whole. At the same time, the majority of young people still support the SMO itself, but the level of this support is significantly lower than that of representatives of older ages. The degree of approval of decisions to carry out partial mobilization and to include four new regions in Russia turned out to be below 50%. Regarding the preferred options for continuing the conflict, there are more young people who are in favor of starting peace negotiations with Ukraine. Possible reasons for more skeptical attitude of young people towards the SMO are formulated, i.e. age features of representatives of this social group; specificity of the conditions in which their political socialization took place (ideological vacuum at a certain stage was filled with Western values, some of which do not correspond to the national culture, traditions and mentality of Russians); features of media consumption by modern youth and imperfections in information support for the SMO by media resources loyal to the state government. One of the ways to improve the current situation is substantiated.