Is the firewall broken between unpopular decisions and Putin who in the popular imagination is a figure hovering above the political fray?
Andrei Pertsev’s analysis from April 17 is instructive: what seem ‘timid’ signals in his measured rating, are seismic if we really try to unpack them – a 50% rise in disapproval, and a similar rise in the figure for distrust in the president. 2026 is going to be the year of surprises in Russia…
Putin ended 2025 with an approval rating of around 85% which was close to the all-time high. His approval had surged in March 2022 from 71% to 83% and largely stayed above 80%. However, by early 2026, approval fell to 67.8% in the week ending April 5, 2026. These were rapid downshifts in the space of a few weeks. By contrast, United Russia’s approval is around 27%.
As readers of this blog will know, I’m a big sceptic about the value of political polls. Especially in Russia. In particular I’ve written on these pages about the deep biases and methodological flaws underlying Levada’s political numbers, but the same applies to the other two big players FOM and VTSIOM (essentially they all stem from the same Soviet intellectual stable and some figures there are either implicated with undermining democratic institutions since 1995 or have never hidden their reactionary views and cynical ideas about the necessity of political manipulation of populations).
To repeat myself, there are five overarching problems:
Social desirability bias. The accuracy of any survey depends on respondents having no fear of negative consequences and being able to regard their questioners as trustworthy – neither condition is a given in Russia. SDB is the pressure to say what you’re expected to say. This is a problem in democracies – think about how in Anglophone countries it’s socially unacceptable to say you don’t want your kid to be trans, or marry a black person. And yet many people hold these views but will rarely share them. I wrote about this in relation to Russia’s homophobia, by the way. There are attempts to measure SDB, but the take away is that this is very hard to do.
Biased question framing by state pollsters
Political questions in Russia are often structured with preambles that remind respondents they are disagreeing with the authorities. Questions are often framed with the idea that there is a consensus in society, or which reflects the ‘common sense’ as presented in the heavily censored media. I’ve also written about fraudulent and shady practices which permeate Russian polling industry
Fear of answering at all
A Levada Center survey found that 26% of respondents admitted being afraid to answer political questions.
Independent entities like the Levada Centre, though seemingly more credible, face “foreign agent” restrictions and limited rural access, and their results should still be interpreted cautiously due to non-response bias. When they are questioned about this they avoid answering. Levada has consistently avoided any platform where their methods can be openly discussed.
The “depth of support” question
Questions about support for the war lack context. For example they are rarely followed by asking whether respondents would accept cuts to social spending to fund the military. Without ‘depth’ and context, knowledge about war support is very shaky.
How do pollsters ask about politics?
VTSIOM regularly conducts opinion polls Putin’s approval and war. Their polls are widely used by war supporters and opponents across the world and in Russia. These polls provide a sort of scientific justification for the Russian leadership’s decisions. Polls serve as a pillar of the intellectual co-optation of social scientists (including Levada) by ‘proving’ the existence of a collective consensus in society. In return, pollsters and sociological agencies get to present themselves as “social architects” and valuable assistants of the Russian authorities due to “a close contact with people”.
Recently, I received further direct evidence of how problematic polling in Russia is. This is because one of my research colleagues in Russia got contacted by VTSIOM for his opinion and was able to do a kind of ‘reverse’ sociological experiment by recording the interaction and analysing it. Here’s what he found:
First of all, a respondent’s anonymity is questionable. The VTSIOM interviewers call you on mobile numbers through which owners could be identified easily in the case of particular interest. An interviewer asks a respondent their name, age, and city. A respondent can hear how an interviewer types in these data on the end of the line. At the end of the interview, a respondent is asked to provide an email for further communication with VTSIOM. The interviewer informs the respondent about recording their talk. Of course, a respondent may stop the talk any moment or refuse to provide an email. But this approach to communication makes questionable not only anonymity but truthfulness of answers, even if a respondent decides to continue an interview. People are scared by long prison sentences for political actions and opinions in Russia. In these realities, some questions of VTSIOM look more like gathering data for potential political criminal investigation than for scientific scholarship.
Today as a respondent I was asked about different aspects of societal and political life in Russia. The set of questions is intended to reveal a respondent’s awareness about recent developments across the globe and in Russia. Notably, VTSIOM is primarily interested in three events in the world which attracted a respondent’s attention last week.
Other questions are related to approval of and trust in the institutes, leaders and parties. The list of institutions includes the President, the Government and the State Duma (parliament). The list of leaders comprises Vladimir Putin, Mikhail Mishustin and the governor of the territorial subject where the respondent’s city is located. VTSIOM asks what party would the respondent to vote for if elections were held this week. The list of parties corresponds with the list of political parties registered in Russia at the moment. The answer ‘against all’ is not included on the ballot (removed from papers more than 20 years ago).
VTSIOM is interested to know whether respondents trust Vladimir Putin, and do they approve of his recent activities. Only if you say you don’t then they follow up with open question which asks them to list three of Putin’s actions which a respondent disapproves of in the last week. As to the Government of Russia, VTSIOM inquires whether it manages well the challenges caused by sanctions, also asking on approval/disapproval of Mishustin’s actions (without listing them, however).
VTSIOM makes inquiries regarding the sources of information which their respondents use. They are asked about how much they watch TV and use the Internet (maximum choice is four hours or longer per day). Telegram is also in the focus as a source of information while other messengers are not mentioned at all, as if they do not exist.
At the fifth year of war, VTSIOM asks whether the respondent “approves the decision about launching the special military operation”. The respondent could choose to approve, disapprove or have difficulties answering. There is a question on the attitude of SMO-related information found by the respondent in Telegram: Does the information in channels you read there provide more positive, or more negative information, or both? [crazy phrasing throughout]. When you answer ‘both’, the interviewer gets a bit confused. It seems that VTSIOM is interested in exploring the structure of respondents’ information bubbles more than to assume that someone is capable of finding and reflecting on a variety of sources of information related to the SMO.
It’s somewhat remarkable that Telegram is considered the main source of information. This indirectly confirms the attempt to justify the continuation of Telegram for commercial purposes of propaganda by ‘responsible’ officers and pro-state bloggers; the large investments in propaganda will definitely come to naught if the authorities block both VPNs and Telegram. Small businesses and the everyday life of ordinary people suffer a lot from the from blocking of mobile internet; the same is true for state-affiliated landline providers. So the next group of questions relate to the probability of mass protests.
Questions about a respondent’s attitude to mass protest in their locality is the most sensitive part of the poll. The authorities prohibit attempts to legally protest against their stupid policies, for example, on the basis of COVID-prevention measures. An illegal protest is treated as a mass riot with those found guilty of instigating potentially spending from eight to 15 years in prison, with penalties of from three to eight years for ordinary participants. Now, can you imagine your willingness to tell the truth if someone records your answer to the question “Are you ready to participate in the mass protests in your locality?” Obviously I said “no” to these questions.
The upcoming State Duma elections are in VTSIOM’s focus. But questions on the attitude to online voting obviously do not take into account how often and intensively the internet is blocked in Russia.
A question asks about the material situation in the respondent’s family as linked to the SMO. Has life become better or worse since the its launch, and how does a respondent estimate the family’s situation: as good, medium or bad.
The most manipulative question relates to “changes and stability”. VTSIOM asks whether a respondent prefers societal changes at the expense of stability, or stability without changes. This question reflects the dominant political discourse since the early 2000s when Putin justified his campaigns on the basis of ‘stability’: opposing the unpredictable changes since the mid-1980s and evoking the ‘stable’ Stagnation of the 1970s. However, the any respondent, the current times remind them much more of the 1980s than the 1970s. In any event, few can avoid the déjà vu effect mixed in with the plots of ‘The Running Man’ and ‘Total Recall’: stupid bans on accessing online content but which don’t apply to the law’s authors or business, an unpopular war where the recruits are the subject of trade and bonuses for the recruiters, and deepening privileges for those who serve the authorities at the expense of austerity politics elsewhere. All while life opportunities for the majority get narrower and narrower. Wartime Russia moves further and further from stability. Any option to change the situation positively is not considered in any meaningful way in these polls.
VTSIOM’s director started as a Komsomol activist, then became a ‘democrat’ and currently earns his keep though his work for this polling company and in two universities funded by the Government of Russia and supervised by the Presidential Executive Office. Wallowing in his ability to satisfy high-ranked clients, both he and his subordinates develop questionnaires that are intentionally based on both obscuring reality and reinforcing the impression among those who take them that the elite have lost any contact with reality. Think about that when you read in the Western press about how many Russians approve of Putin and the war.
Postsocialism 