Vladimir Putin’s approval rating among Russians has fallen to its lowest level since before the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, amid an economic slowdown and an unpopular crackdown on internet access.
The Russian president’s rating dropped to a low of 65.6% last week, a decline of 4.5 points since the end of March, according to data from the state-owned Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM).
JOIN US ON TELEGRAM
Follow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official.
It means that the authoritarian leader’s rating is more than 12 points lower than it was in late December.
Ahead of the invasion in late February 2022, Putin’s approval figure stood at 64.3%. It quickly increased after the attack, as is often the case in periods of war.
The pace of Putin’s popularity drop over the last few weeks is reminiscent of 2018, when the Kremlin announced an increase in the retirement age, the Moscow Times reported. That summer, his rating fell by 19 points, from 81.5% in mid-May to 62.5% in early July.
Such ratings are high compared to political leaders in the West, and critics regularly question the reliability of such opinion polls, given the scale of state censorship in Russia.
Internet clampdown
This year’s favorability decline coincides with the Kremlin’s crackdown on Russian cyberspace and the authorities’ bid to create a so-called “sovereign internet.”
In March, the Kremlin blocked the popular messaging app Telegram, along with several other platforms and services such as YouTube and Facebook, in an effort to encourage users to switch to its state-approved “super-app” Max, which critics fear could be used for surveillance.
Other Topics of Interest
