The Russian public doesn’t want war, but is anyone listening?

Eight years ago, following Russia’s annexation of Crimea, the Kremlin’s confrontational policies brought out tens of thousands of peace marchers to the streets of Moscow, even as polls showed huge majorities of the public enthusiastically in favor of President Vladimir Putin’s defiance of the West.

Today, amid the Kremlin’s standoff with NATO over Ukraine, the mood is very different for both peace advocates and the public.

Russia’s beleaguered liberal intelligentsia are still speaking out in a tough statement signed by over 5,000 people, warning that in the current crisis “the citizens of...