Be ready for Putin 2.0
Weekend essay, May 30, 2022
Those who follow the political situation in Russia are well familiar with this graph—the Vladimir Putin’s approval rating.1 Every expert will tell you that you should not trust this data because, under an authoritarian regime/dictatorship, any polls about the leader’s support will not give an accurate picture. It is traditionally said that respondents are afraid to answer and are scared that the survey data will become known to the police, and punishment could follow, etc. This is hard to argue with. Moreover, it is confirmed by polling data: When Russians are asked whether others (!) sincerely express their opinions about Putin, more than half of the respondents say that at least half of those answering this question conceal their views.
Therefore, we should be very cautious about using such polls or making conclusions about the dynamics of the political situation in Russia. However, one should not deny these results and say that such polls serve only one purpose—to convince society of the lack of alternative to the political regime. The polls show that Russians have a rather adequate and critical assessment of Vladimir Putin as a politician. Nearly 80% of respondents believe Putin is responsible for the country’s problems, and only 18% believe that careless bureaucrats or external circumstances are the source of the difficulties.2
In answer to the question of which strata of the population Putin expresses interest, the first three places are taken by “oligarchs,” the siloviki, and the bureaucracy. This opinion was expressed by 40%, 40%, and 29% of respondents in September 2021 (there was a possibility of multiple answers) (16%, 39%, and 14% in March 2020, when Putin was first elected President of Russia). At the same time, the frequency of references to “ordinary people” and the “middle class” was 17% and 16%, respectively (18% and 19% in March 2020).
The population’s assessment of Putin’s main achievements looks very interesting: Respondents saw the major successes in his policy’s “power” component, which increased sharply after 2017.
At the same time, after 2017, Putin’s main failures became clearly visible: The inability to ensure stable economic development of the country and growth of the households’ living standards, defeat corruption, and curb the “oligarchs.”
Only 8% of Russians admire Putin, and 21% sympathize with him. At the same time, 43% view him neutrally or indifferently, and 26% view him with suspicion or antipathy and disgust.3 Nearly two-thirds, 64%, of Russians believe the Russian population is tired of waiting for Putin to make any positive changes. Still, in September 2021, less than half of Russians (47%) said they would like to see Putin as President after 2024, while 42% said they would not.
However, let’s look at Putin not as a person and politician who has been at the helm of Russia for nearly 23 years but as a set of foreign policy views. We can see a different picture—most Russians share the opinions that Putin preaches.
Fifty-seven percent of Russians see their country as a peace-loving nation and believe that NATO countries should not fear Russia, while almost half (48%) believe that NATO poses a threat to Russia. The opposite viewpoints were held by 36% and 44% of respondents, respectively.
In 2010, Russia’s chief adversaries in the eyes of the Russians were Georgia (57%), Latvia (36%), Lithuania (35%), and Estonia (28%). The United States was seen in this role by 26% of respondents, Ukraine by 13%, and Great Britain by 6%. In 2021, “everything fell into place”: The United States (66%), Ukraine (40%), and the United Kingdom (28%) topped the list of the main opponents.4
In October 2000, 57% of Russians believed their country was part of Europe; by February 2021, their share had more than halved to 27%. At the same time, 70% of Russians held the opposite view, including 44% who were firmly convinced.
More than 70% of Russians in March 2021 were convinced that Russia had not violated its international obligations and agreements by annexing Crimea.
One has to hand it to the Russians: They are well aware that Russia’s foreign policy threatens to turn into big problems for everyone: In 2008, 30% of respondents were afraid of a new world war, and in 2021, their share almost doubled (57%).