Russians are losing faith in a quick victory in the war against Ukraine: how this has affected Putin’s level of support

Public discontent is growing in Russia amid a protracted war with Ukraine, economic hardship and restrictions on internet access. Vladimir Putin’s approval rating has fallen to 65.6%, the lowest level since the war began.

This is reported by The Washington Post .

According to Russia’s largest state-run sociological service, Putin’s approval rating has fallen by 12.2 percentage points since the beginning of the year. The publication notes that assessing public opinion is complicated by repression and a ban on criticism of the war, but the dynamics indicate growing public fatigue.

“The general mood is: enough is enough, you’ve been fighting long enough,” the Russian official said.

He also emphasized that the war has been going on longer than expected and the goals set have not been achieved.

“It seems to everyone that this is going on longer than World War II, the Great Patriotic War — and yet we can’t take even one region,” he said.

The economic situation in Russia continues to deteriorate under the influence of sanctions and high interest rates. According to Rosstat, the economy shrank by 1.8% in the first 2 months of the year, and the volume of overdue payments reached $109 billion.

Business representatives and economists openly criticize the government’s economic policy.

“People at the top have completely lost touch with reality on the ground, in the economy,” said Volodymyr Bogalev.

Economist Robert Nigmatulin stated that there is a significant lag behind other countries and rising inflation.

“We have lost everything and yet remain the poorest,” he said.

Separately, there is growing outrage over restrictions on Internet access.

“We’ve already lived behind the ‘Iron Curtain’ once and were sure it would never happen again. But it happened. Now we have a digital ‘Iron Curtain’,” said one Russian resident.

At the same time, pessimism about the future is growing in society.

“In general, both I and my friends feel complete hopelessness, with which nothing can be done,” said student Igor.

As the publication notes, despite growing discontent, there are currently no signs of the authorities losing control over the situation, but repression may intensify in response.

By the way, the Kremlin is probably considering at least three scenarios for ending the war in Ukraine , including a freeze on hostilities.

Recall that Moscow is already creating informational preconditions for potential aggression against the Baltic states , in parallel with negotiations on Ukraine. As it became known, a propaganda campaign has been intensified in Russia regarding the creation of the “Narva People’s Republic” , which may indicate that the Kremlin is preparing to attack Estonia.

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