First of all, I don't believe that Vladimir Putin has ever enjoyed the overwhelming support of the majority of the Russian population, because the last free—but not fair—election, according to international organizations, took place in Russia in 2003. That's 19 years of stolen elections.
Vladimir Putin re-elected himself as president time and again in the absence of any alternative. All his opponents who could have provided this alternative were either killed, like Boris Nemtsov, or thrown in prison, like Alexei Navalny. That basically describes how much support he has.
When we talk about the Russian population, I think it is very difficult to assess or evaluate the state of mind of Russian society as a whole in the absence, again, of free media, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of expression and free opinion polls—all the basic freedoms. How do you assess the state of mind of these people?
Yes, many of them have been brainwashed because of, as I already mentioned, 19 years of propaganda. The majority of the Russian population rely on TV as their main source of information. In bigger cities, of course, they have access to Internet. When you move into the country, there are no public toilets, let alone Internet. They don't know what a VPN service is.
Yes, many of them have been brainwashed. Many of them have been scared into silence because when people are being raped while being arrested, of course it is done to scare the rest of them into silence and to intimidate them by showing what might happen to them if they even risk doing anything of the kind.
I just want to say that you and I see all the pictures that are being thrown out there by Russian propaganda with these Z people, those who put kids in Z shapes in the snow in the streets. This is a very aggressive part of society, but it is a minority. You are seeing this because there are no independent media and the only media in Russia are propagandist media. This is the only image that they want to throw out there for you to rely on.