This gives us a good reason to double down on the counter-propaganda efforts. This is a profound point that begs reiterating-even after years of heavy bombardment with poisonous propaganda, more than a third of “supporters” aren’t really sure. That’s a large portion of the Russian society, which is confused about what’s going on, is leaning toward supporting the government propaganda, but at the same time isn’t fully sure about this stance. The rest of what’s bundled under support is a partial, or conditional support (“closer to supporting than opposing”)- light blue on the Levada graph below.Īmong Russians under 40, this group is above 30%, and among Russians younger than 25 it stands at 42%.
Given the conservative estimate that 10-15% are against the war but are afraid to answer questions honestly, the actual support for the war is below 50%. Solid support for the war (“definitely support the Russian military action in Ukraine”) stands at 53%. Moreover, when one examines the range of support from “full” to “partial”, the picture becomes even more complicated. The 81% of popular support for Putin’s war should never be mentioned without the second figure- the meager 29% who follow the events in Ukraine closely. This is what the Levada poll actually reflects. As long as they are not affected directly, Russians just don’t pay much attention to foreign operations anymore. Practically an entire decade has passed under the shadow of some war going on in the background somewhere. Russians have grown desensitized to military operations over the past few years- with continuous reports on the operations in Donbas, Crimea, Syria, Georgia, Abkhazia, Ossetia. It begs to be reminded that in Russia, the television tells people every day that what’s going on is not a war but a ‘limited scale military operation’. This misreading of the environment, naturally, feeds the shock and grief in response to the polling data churned up, a profound disbelief that Russians can possibly support such barbarity. This detail alone should give us a pause, as the poll primarily reflects Russians’ unawareness of what’s really going on in Ukraine.įor Westerners, it is difficult to imagine the kind of propaganda and disinformation bubble that characterizes the Russian information space.
When asked whether they follow the events related to Putin’s “special operation”, only 29% of respondents said they follow them “quite closely”. Let’s look at the latest Levada poll stating that “81% of Russians support Putin’s war”. I would like to warn against drawing such conclusions from the raw wartime polling data, as it may result in severely misguided policy choices for which the West will pay dearly.īesides the obvious challenges related to conducting reliable polls within the context of a brutal totalitarian regime in time of war, examination of the survey’s methodology uncovers a lot of nuances. Many far-reaching conclusions and generalizations are articulated based on this data- that Russians are hopeless as a nation, that the problem is not just with Putin but with the whole Russian society espousing imperialistic, chauvinist worldviews, and so on. Such claims are based on the interpretation of recent opinion polls, including the latest poll by the Levada Center which came up with shocking figure of 81% supporting the war. Many in the West have been easily convinced by assertions that an overwhelming majority of Russians support the war.
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