There’s Something Suspicious About Putin’s Rising Approval

Lev Gudkov says that the opinion poll he conducted in March, which gave Russian President Vladimir Putin high marks, is accurate. People want to know whether Russians tell pollsters the truth or if they hide their feelings for fear of repercussions, he says, and he gets questions about it every day.

He is confident, though, that his respondents have not lied about Putin or the war. Gudkov, the director of the Levada Center, Russia’s sole independent polling organization, believes that the perception that Russians are frightened to tell the truth about politics is mostly disseminated by dissidents, who are aware of the high cost of speaking out and are sensitive to it.

Gudkov claims that the rest of Russia is merely under the grip of official television propaganda, which has been continuously poured into their heads for several years, parroting Kremlin statements.

According to the latest Levada poll from March, 83 percent of Russians approve of President Putin’s conduct, a figure that has been steadily rising since the summer. It was 61 percent at the time, and it has since risen to 65 percent in January, 71 percent in February, and 83 percent now that the war has started. Approximately 81 percent of people support the war in general.

The high ratings — what many would call surprisingly high — for the Ukraine invasion reflected the effectiveness of Kremlin propaganda, according to Gudkov, due to Russia’s censorship and the extreme paucity of alternative news channels.

Gudkov explained that views varied from village to village according to size or population. In bigger cities, he stated, the overall mood was “shame, despair, depression, anxiety and discouragement” about the war.

“Where people are more educated, more informed, I would say the atmosphere is more one of panic. Large metropolitan areas have been the first to feel the effect of sanctions and understand the catastrophic situation this will lead to in a few months,” Gudkov added.

He did admit, though, that anti-Americanism is on the upswing. The United States was seen negatively by 73 percent of Russians. Gudkov claimed that attitudes toward America fluctuated in direct proportion to the amount and tone of state-run propaganda. It was most intense during NATO bombings of Belgrade, the Georgian conflict, and the annexation of Crimea — and as a result, anti-Americanism spiked at those times.