That's a great question.
What I said was that when I was there in November, I heard a number of people say it was a mistake. Now I've heard people characterize the mistake differently. Some people thought the mistake was not marching to Kiev; other people thought the mistake was getting involved in the first place. I heard both sets of viewpoints.
I don't have good public opinion polling on the Russian population as a whole. I think overall the sense is that the annexation of Crimea continues to be seen as a great thing, and what Russia actually is or is not doing in Ukraine continues to be a subject for debate, though I've noticed that in elite circles, people have become more and more comfortable admitting that Russian forces are in fact fighting in Ukraine.
I think the October-November opinions before the U.S. election, to be blunt, had a lot to do with both the Ukrainian response and the western response. I think the election of Donald Trump has made Russia think that this might be more salvageable than it was, and Ukraine's continuing inability to solve some problems also feeds into that. I haven't gone back to the people to ask whether they've rethought those positions since then. I think it would be an interesting exercise.
Russia has a different problem, one that's not talked about, which is it's not just the Russian military in the Ukraine. There are Russian volunteers, folks who just decide to pick up a gun and go to Ukraine. There is a certain class of Russians, mostly men, some women, who have limited economic prospects, who are frustrated with their lives. Some of them will go to Syria; some will go to Ukraine.
If they've gone to Syria, they're going to have a hard time coming back. If they do come back, they will be arrested. If they go to Ukraine, they come back with their weapons to Russia, and there they may be part of the Russian right wing. They may be part of the groups that are frustrated with the Russian government for not pressing on in Ukraine and not rescuing Ukraine, and not backing them up. They don't get veterans' benefits, so I think that's something Russia is going to face going forward.