It is hard to measure approval in places like Russia, where people who say the wrong things publicly enough disappear from their homes. Most ordinary Russians hold two opinions: a public one and one for round the kitchen table. Which one are you referring to?

Russian weaponry didn't improve, in opposite. Don't look at the paper numbers, they have maybe 10% of the machinery fully operational, spread over very wide territory. The rest is there for spare parts at best.

You mean the russian tank (armata) that they found out they can't build en masse? Or those 40 or 50 years old tanks actually used in Ukraine, which were new during USSR but not so much anymore, and javelins make a quick work out of them. At least from those that don't break by themselves due to poor maintenance (which is due to theft and corruption and general russian approach).

I saw some pictures how the pockets of active armor were empty or stuffed with egg paper wrappings. Again. Same happened in Georgia. Some mighty army. Soldiers selling gas to belarus civilians just before the invasion. Then running out of it in the fields. This conflict showed how weak their army is in conventional conflict.

That being said they have some impressively horrifying thermobaric weapons like TOS-1 which they currently use on civilians. But it doesn't seem they have a lot of it and those alone don't win wars.

>I saw some pictures how the pockets of active armor were empty or stuffed with egg paper wrappings

Actually those are spacers for ERA plates. They just forgot to put it between spacers.

How do you square approval being stronger with russians fleeing the country?

The ones who don't approve, leave. The ones who remain, approve. Perfectly consistent :-)

Spherical cow levels of consistency, indeed :)

Some may support the war in principle but hypocritically don't want to be conscripted.

Or they don’t support the war, another plausible explanation.

Most probably don't support it. Some might. People are complicated and not always logical.