Despite a constant stream of bellicose rhetoric from Russian state-controlled media about the supposed threat posed by a Ukraine portrayed as in thrall to the West, official stridency finds little echo in the streets, shops and cafes of a Moscow in winter’s grip.

“I don’t think it’s in Russia’s interest — any full-scale conflict in the modern world is unacceptable, especially with Ukraine,” said Natalia Zhigareva, 53, a design specialist in the Russian capital. “Whatever the media say, it’s still a friendly country to us.”

Public opinion suggests many Russians recoil from the idea of all-out war with Ukraine, with which Russia shares close cultural, historic and linguistic ties.

But Alexei Levinson, who works with the independent Russian pollster Levada, said some harbor the belief that Ukraine could somehow be co-opted without a real fight, in line with the precedent of the nearly bloodless seizure of Crimea.