Do Russians Want To Be Back in the USSR?

Over the holidays, Russia has been busy advancing its propaganda agenda. Videos of a New Year's TV gala including military personnel and a toast about a Russia that is once more "enlarging" circulated on social media. The broadcast was not the only TV event conjuring up fantasies of a lost Russian empire. During the latest installment of the state television talk show Evening with Vladimir Solovyov, guests discussed changing maps back to display USSR or Russian empire boundaries as well as the ongoing Soviet "project" Russia was working on, according to Newsweek.

In fact, data by the Levada Center shows that many Russians are still quite fond of the USSR. In the latest installment of a reoccurring survey, two thirds of Russians said in 2018 they regretted the fall of the Soviet Union, up from around half in 2012 and about as many as after the demise of the country in the early 1990s.

December 26 marked the 31rd anniversary of the dissolution of the Soviet Union. 2022 saw the centennial of its creation.