‘The fight was inevitable’: confident supporters
These are people who are convinced that the war was inevitable. They also believe that it is necessary to continue the war until Russia’s victory, regardless of the costs involved. Respondents employing this type of logic often refer to a well-known statement that Putin once made: “If a fight is inevitable, strike first”.
At the same time, six months after the war started (at the time of the interview), these people became more critical of the course of military operation. While they continue to insist on the inevitability of the war and the need to continue it until victory, they also criticise how the war is waged: its pace and results, legal and moral status of the ‘special military operation’, which has never been officially declared as war.
Within this criticism, particular emphasis is placed on the timeliness and justification of initiating the “special military operation”. Some confident supporters believe that since the war was inevitable, it was necessary to wait for an attack from Ukraine’s side; others insist that the preventive strike was necessary. Regardless of a particular position, this issue is very important for this type of logic: