What can public opinion data tell us about Putin’s grip on power in Russia?

报告摘要

Support for Russian President Vladimir Putin is a qualitatively different concept than support for an elected executive in a democracy. It is essential to understand these differences to interpret public opinion data in Russia. This knowledge paper discusses that there is little evidence of widespread preference falsification in Russian public opinion data regarding support for the government and its policies as of yet, but preference falsification could increase with greater repression in Russia. Moreover, Putin’s popularity has decreased substantially over the spring and summer 2026, but remains high in both absolute terms and relative to his popularity prior to the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. There is great variation across age and ethnic groups in terms of support for Putin, while support for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine varies substantially by age, gender and ethnic identity.