Abstract: The article is devoted to the study of public attitudes by identifying beliefs and values, collectively shared meanings about the place and role of Russia and the "Russian World" in the modern world. It is based on the correlation of online survey data with All-Russian representative opinion polls and the involvement of the results of other studies. Most of the respondents are young people under 35 years old, constantly interested in politics, financially well–off, students or working in state institutions. A negative attitude to the collapse of the USSR and the change of power in Ukraine during the Maidan was recorded in more than sixty percent of respondents. The annexation of Crimea, the formation of the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics, and the entry of new regions into the Russian Federation in 2022 were positively assessed by two-thirds to three-quarters of respondents. There is an ambiguous attitude towards the special military operation and mobilization. In general, more than two thirds of the respondents are patriotic citizens who support the politics of the current government. It shows the coexistence of beliefs, at least of some respondents: on the one hand, the immanent acceptance of democratic institutions and traditions, relevant values, including the protection of human rights, on the other, the support of the state discourse of confrontation with the "collective West" – the source of these cultural and law ideas. The factors bearing the unifying potential for modern Russian society, in our opinion, can be expressed in such beliefs as: "Russia is an empire", "Russia is a great (world) power", the strong state that you can be proud of. The Russian idea (in the ethnic sense), a special civilizational, Orthodox identity, Messianism have fewer supporters.

Abstract: Based on the data of obtained in the course of interviews of students of the Southern Federal District and North Caucasian Federal District conducted in 2019, the author analyzes the value preferences and ideological views. Modern youth gives priority to individual rather than group values (freedom of movement, personal security, independence of thought and action, etc.). A third of young people were undecided about their ideological-political preferences; while one fifth indicated that share liberal views. Youth promotes ecological values and care for the world. Majority of the interviewed students believe that it is essential to comply with the norms, rules, and laws, and support peaceful relations with others. Many respondents share tolerant views. All this signifies legal awareness of modern youth. Such social values as the ability to vote, social justice and equality are of high importance, which alongside anticipation of escalation of economic problems and demand for change, leads to social tension. The author also notes a high level of emigration moods; only a quarter of respondents have no intentions of leaving the country. Based on students’ understanding of the concept of patriotism, the author demarcates two points of views: the firs incorporates patriotic views with the Western liberal values; the second sees Russia as a separate unique country. However, these ideas did not directly contradict each other in mentality of the majority of students, but the selected answers in various question often opposing in meaning. This proves the theoretical hypothesis on the existence of cognitive-ideological matrices in mentality of the individual as a pre-reflexive environment, which shapes deliberate political beliefs.

Abstract: Due to spread of telecommunication networks and multifold increase in the sources of information over the last decades of the XX century, emerges a phenomenon of cognitive censorship, based not on limitation of information, but prevention of people’s ability to adequately perceive this information and correctly analyze it. Success in exercising cognitive political censorship depends on many factors, and one of the main ones is control of the media (information) field. This article explores how separate episodes within the framework of presidential race campaign in Ukraine were subjected to censorship. The research examines two eye-catching events of the presidential race in Ukraine, one of which can be viewed as a phenomenon of cognitive political censorship: expected event – candidate debates right before the second tour of election completely capture the audiences’ attention and there is no predicted sensational reaction to details of the functionality of Zelensky camp. Cognitive censorship is used in conjunction with manipulations – shift of attention, as well as feed of information from a different angle for the purposes of distortion, diminishing of its importance, promotion of alternative points of view and others.

Abstract: This article is dedicated to the examination of public opinion of the Russians and Ukrainians regarding the ongoing armed conflict in the Donbass Region in the context of the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation on the simplified procedure for obtaining Russian citizenship for residents of the unrecognized Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk People's Republic. The author also analyzes the reflection of this political decision in the Ukraine’s media space. For more than five years, the negative image of Russia is consensual in the Ukrainian mass media; however, there is a trend of improving attitude of Ukrainians towards Russians after a sharp decline 2014-2015. For substantiation of the proposed theses, the author uses the data of the Russian and Ukrainian sociological surveys, as well as instruments of the monitoring systems “Medialogy”. Public opinion among the Ukrainians directly depends on place of residence of the respondents: for example, almost three fourth of Donbass population have a positive attitude towards Russia against just a quarter in the west of the country.  Same pattern is traced with regards to the War in Donbass and possible ways for its settlement – the closer to the epicenter of conflict, the lesser people approve the hostilities. The great majority of Russians support the President’s decision on the simplified procedure for obtaining Russian citizenship. The author underlines the direct dependence of the fluctuations in public opinion on the presence or absence of massive propaganda in mass media. The scientific novelty of this article consists in examination of the relevant questions using the most recent data from various sources.

Abstract: The article adapts the foreign interdisciplinary approach to the phenomenon of radicalization for understanding contemporary Russian realities. Existing factors - precursors, promoting radicalization, are identified and analyzed from the standpoint of the system approach. Transformative learning theory is drawn from psychology to explain the processes taking place in the consciousness of an adult person during his/her transformation into a radical terrorist capable of violent actions. The foreign theories have a heuristic potential, but they are not properly represented in Russian-language studies.The article is written on the basis of an interdisciplinary approach using general scientific methods of analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction.A. Wilner and C.-J. Dubouloz consider three precursors of the radicalization process in their study: socio-political alienation, deep religious identity as opposed to globalization and discontent with the foreign policy of the state. Socio-political factors are objective and projected onto the individual personal circumstances through the prism of his/her psychological characteristics and ideological convictions. It does not matter whether the reasons are subjective (problems in the family, the impossibility to realize personal aspirations, death, divorce, etc.) or objective (socioeconomic, political, ecological, etc.), psychological processes of rethinking and searching for new meaningful prospects in the conditions of instability. The key role in this process belongs to ideology in a broad sense, including religion, and the relevant values. Ideology allows an individual to talk about justice, evaluate events. Objective conditions - precursors or socio-political factors - affect the entire society, the information-ideological field is the same for all, but there is no complete radicalization. Everyone chooses from the proposed set of ideas those shaping or transforming their own worldview. Involvement in radical social groups and networks contributes to the perception of violent acts and terrorism. Understanding of the processes of personal transformation in the mind of an individual explains why people, using a unique combination of causes in each case, come to the same result - go on the path of violence, exposing themselves and their closed ones to danger. The radicalization theories explain the processes both in Western countries, in Africa, and in Russia and Asia, that's why we can conclude that they are universal.

Abstract: This article is dedicated to the analysis of public speeches of Dagestan presidents and utterances of the representatives of political opposition from the perspective of articulation of the problems of national (ethnic) representation in government structures of Dagestan, as well as correlation with the actual political practices of distribution of the offices between ethnic groups. The scale of this problem in society is assessed by means of verbalization of the national affiliation of the officials, assignment of the post after a certain ethnic group, or the agreement-based distribution of offices, depending on the emotional coloring, essence and context of the utterance. The main method consists in discourse-analysis of the following texts: Dagestan Presidential Address, speeches and interviews of the political actors and representatives of opposition, laws, and collective addresses. In speeches of the three Dagestan presidents we can observe the evolution from admission of the need of considering the national factor in appointing to the position (the first two presidents) to the top priority of officials’ professionalism (the third president); and only R. Abdulatipov in disguised form shows preferences towards the national representation. Currently, in the official political rhetoric, the problem of distribution of power between various national (ethnic) groups is not enunciated, which corresponds with the Constitution of the Russian Federation. However, Dagestan political culture on the level of political practice in one or another level preserves the system of proportional representation of ethnic groups. Scholars note the decrease in the importance of national question in political sphere for the broad population groups.