YAROSLAVL, RUSSIA – SEPTEMBER,1 (RUSSIA OUT) Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) and Presidential Adminitsration’s First Deputy Chief of Staff Sergey Kiriyenko (L) observe an exhibition prior to the All-Russia’s Open Lesson in Yaroslavl, 260 km. north of Moscow, Russia, September,1,2017. Putin is having a one-day trip to Yaroslavl to conduct the All Russia’s open lesson broadcasted to all schools in the country. (Photo by Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images)
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Vladmir Putin has a problem. Despite the almost $3 billion spent on television propaganda, Putin is not as popular in Russia as he would like to be. Over four years after Russia’s invasion, the war in Ukraine continues to grind on. Aiming for total control over the Donbas, which experts are increasingly saying will take years, Russia launched a massive attack on Kiev using its powerful hypersonic Oreshnik missile. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reported that his country’s air defences intercepted 549 of the drones and 55 missiles in one of Russia’s biggest attacks since the war started.
Maybe this is a distraction for Putin’s poll number problems. Autocracies often invest in their own polling as a propaganda tool to demonstrate legitimacy. But even Russia’s own state-run public opinion research center and public opinion foundation recorded that Putin’s approval rating fell from 74% in February to 65.6% in April, with trust declining 7 points to 71% in the same period. While these would be considered sky-high ratings in a democracy, these are the lowest levels recorded since the start of the 2022 war with Ukraine. A change in methodology to door-to-door interviews, led to an uptick in approval by only one point.
Polling is notoriously tricky to do in authoritarian contexts. It is difficult for people to express their genuine opinions about sensitive topics without fearing retribution. Citizens routinely hide their true feelings and engage in preference falsification, which can lead to massive overestimation of a dictator’s actual support. Additionally, in tightly regulated information environments citizens have little access to accurate or critical information about the regime.
The Levada Center is the only independent organization that has regularly conducted surveys in Russia, showing how the war in Ukraine originally boosted Putin’s approval rating to 87%, up from a low of 59% in 2020. Though still incredibly high, Putin’s support has dropped 8 points in the last few months, according to the Center.
Sources of Putin’s Sluggish Polling
One would think that the reason for this decline in Putin’s approval rating would be the war in Ukraine dragging on. The proportion of Russians who had relatives who participated in or are participating in the military operation was 15% in 2022 but today it is almost one-third.
Half of the country is also experiencing power and heating outages, medicine shortages, and drone strikes. Indeed, as many as 70% of Russians are within range of Ukrainian drones.
Moreover, while Ukraine isn’t winning the war, they are certainly doing better than Putin expected—and have become more offensive. The usually pompous Victory Day Parade in Moscow on May 9th had to be pared down for fear of Ukrainian drones.
Or possibly Russians are fed up with inflation. Prices have risen steadily since Russia invaded Ukraine due to sanctions, but big government spending initially masked the mounting economic consequences of the war. Salaries have not kept up with inflation and at the start of 2026 supermarket prices rose 2.3%.
But even worse for the Kremlin, Russians polled estimate that inflation was up by 15%, with more than half of respondents polled in April claiming that inflation was “very high,” while another 30% called it moderate.
And yet the real source of Russian angst are the internet shutdowns taking place including the blocking of Telegram and VPNs. This started in earnest in May of 2025 but has become more widespread and frequent since April of 2026.
Even Russian influencers who were incredibly supportive of the war in Ukraine have broken their silence offering subtle criticisms of the elites that surround Putin, demonstrating that the internet blackout (not the invasion of Ukraine) was the final straw. Small businesses have been especially affected, making it impossible to stay in touch with customers. Internet shutdowns constitute a collective punishment, negatively impacting not only political opponents and protest groups but society as a whole.
Russia used to just block certain platforms and websites—a strategy referred to as blacklisting. In a sign of waning legitimacy, Russia has now switched to a whitelisting model—shutting down almost everything with only a select group of services remaining accessible to exert greater infrastructural control.
Internet shutdowns are usually the hallmark of extremely repressive authoritarian regimes. Iran ordered shutdowns repeatedly during elections and protests; Gabon shut down its internet after a military coup; and Cuba shut down the internet after protests—and partial shutdowns are the norm across the island. Not to be outdone, Myanmar imposes some of the harshest internet restrictions in the world.
It’s part of a growing trend since the pandemic. In 2021, 182 shutdowns took place in 34 countries while in 2025 there were at least 313 internet shutdowns across 52 countries, costing billions. One study found that between 2019 and 2021, internet shutdowns in 46 countries led to over $20.5 billion in losses.
Officially Russia claims it must shut down messaging apps and the internet to prevent Ukrainian drones from using mobile networks. But this has had a huge impact on regular Russians, leading to disruptions in electronic payments, satellite navigation, cash machines, delivery services, online work, baking and everyday communication.
Ironically Putin spent years building a technologically connected Russia as a symbol of modernization and national strength only to dismantle its connectivity in the name of security. If the war in Ukraine is not just a pretext for the internet shutdown, this all exposes how deeply the conflict has negatively reshaped life inside Russia.
Polling has shown that Russians find internet regulation to be the leading cause of anxiety—even more so than Ukrainian drone attacks. The previous forms of censorship could be worked around; the disruption to connectivity makes modern life nearly impossible. Maybe Putin is incapable of relating to this; reportedly he does not use the internet or own a smartphone.
Putin’s Isolation and Growing Rift in Inner Circle
Putin is also growing increasingly isolated—a common progression in personalist style regimes. Putin had supposedly spent weeks hiding in an underground bunker gripped by fears of an assassination or coup d’etat. While fears of a coup are wishful thinking for the West, Putin has entered an extremely challenging period.
The elites--which hold the keys to propping up any dictator– have become more disillusioned and there is a clear split between the security services or siloviki and the civilian elites. The latter are particularly disappointed with Putin, and there are reports of a growing rift between the two factions over the internet crackdown.
The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov and the first deputy chief of staff, Sergei Kiriyenko have tried to steer Putin away from engaging in such harsh restrictions for fear that it would lead to a backlash but with no success. Kiriyenko uncharacteristically remarked publicly, “It’s impossible to prohibit everything,”
But Putin only really listens to the security services. Putin is surrounded by military generals who tell Putin what he wants to hear—that the Donbas will be taken by the end of the year (a delusional prediction) and that shutting down the internet is a necessary evil.
This may in part explain the atypical dip in state-run polling—the civilian leadership is trying to send a message that blocking the internet is a bad idea. The FSB hardliners are standing firm, however.
But this could backfire. Modern successful authoritarian regimes often tolerate limited digital openness because strong performance can sustain political passivity. But by interfering with everyday routines, the Kremlin risks generating the very dissatisfaction it hopes to suppress—a sign that all is not well inside Russia.