Russian families are splitting because of the conflict between young people who do not support the war against Ukraine and their older relatives who are on a “diet” on state propaganda.

On the third day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Victoria Gough realized that her mother was moving away from her..

“In telephone conversations, I noticed that my mother begins to repeat the government’s story about this war. That it was all NATO's fault that Russia had no choice but to defend itself,” said the 28-year-old Russian, who works as a fashion consultant in Moscow, where she moved from a small town to Siberia..

“My mission was to change her point of view, to show what was going on,” Gough told The Guardian.. On her pages on social networks, she condemned the invasion of the Russian army into Ukraine..

Vladimir Putin's decision to start a war against a neighboring country has divided many families in Ukraine. After all, the men had to take up arms while their relatives were evacuated away from violence.. But families in Russia are also experiencing certain splits.. Conflicts arise between those who support the war and those who are against it.. Often the crack runs along the line of generations.

“Broadly speaking, young Russians are less prone to anti-Ukrainian sentiment.. We saw that the majority of the youth took part in the anti-war actions.. How one perceives war largely depends on where one gets the news from.. If she's watching TV, she's more likely to follow the official line.. Older people tend to watch TV,” Andrey Kalesnikov of the Carnegie Moscow Center explained..

Earlier polls showed that TV remains the main source of news for Russians.. More than 60% of the population rely on information from the “box”7 Russians over 65 are 51% more likely to watch TV than those under 25. The full power of the Russian state media was mobilized to depict the war as a special military operation aimed at liberating Ukraine and protecting the Donbass from Ukrainian genocide.. All videos of Russian bombing of cities are called fabricated.

“We see that the majority of Russians support the actions of their country, or at least the way they are described in the media,” Kalesnikov added..

According to him, given the sensitivity of the topic, it is not surprising that this created tension between family members and friends..

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Last week, Gough decided to leave Russia after she was detained for participating in anti-war protests in Moscow.. She says she was finally able to convince her mother, Svetlana, that it was her country that was playing a destructive role in the war..

" I have a whole list here,” she jokes..

The publication writes that it will be even more difficult for Russians to fulfill such a mission.. On Friday, Russia announced the blocking of Instagram. A few days before this was done with Facebook and Twitter. The suppression of social networks and independent media, which were already few in number in the country, would further limit access to external information during the war and increase the influence of state propaganda..

For other Russians, such as a Moscow-based tech consultant named Dmitry, the war has already been a meltdown in relationships with families..

“After the invasion, I wanted to visit my parents and try to explain to them what was going on,” he said..

In the first week of the war, he underwent a daily ritual of showing his parents videos of Russian shelling of Ukrainian cities, as well as critical articles by independent bloggers and the media..

" They even became even more convinced that they were right.. I left home after a week. My mother wrote me a message after that that I was betraying my country,” Dmitry said..

The last drop of patience was lost last Thursday when his father sent him a new video saying that the bombing of a maternity hospital in Mariupol was allegedly " And the actors pretended to be wounded mothers. This conspiracy theory was also spread by Russian officials.

" Not sure if we can ever sit down at the same table again. I think they were zombified by state propaganda. They really consider me an enemy of the state. I gave up,” said Dmitry.

In some cases, even their own experience under shelling was not a sufficiently convincing argument for relatives regarding Russia's actions.. BBC and New York Times spoke to Ukrainians who said their relatives in Russia simply don't believe Ukrainian cities are being bombed.

“My parents understand that some fighting is taking place here. But they say: " They don't destroy anything.. They won't touch you.

They only hit military bases,” Oleksandra from Kyiv told the BBC about her attempts to explain to her parents that the Ukrainian capital is under Russian attack..

Popular Russian blogger and former tech firm executive Ilya Krasilshchik asked his 110,000 Instagram followers to send him their stories of conflicts with relatives over the war.. According to the blogger, very quickly he received " He decided to publish some of these conversations to show the youth that they are not themselves..

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