Putin’s popularity falls after Kursk invasion, says Kremlin-linked poll

Ukrainian incursion into Russia dents leader’s usually rock-solid public support

Vladimir Putin’s popularity has fallen since Ukraine’s surprise invasion of Kursk, according to a Kremlin-linked research unit.
The poll by VTsIOM confirms unofficial analysis that the Ukrainian incursion has dented the Russian president’s usually rock-solid public support.
It showed that Putin’s popularity fell by 3.3 percentage points to 73.6 per cent within a fortnight of Ukraine’s Aug 6 attack, the first invasion of Russia since the Second World War.
This is the largest slip in support for Putin since his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, larger than drops after a mobilisation in Russia in September 2022 and a failed coup by Kremlin mercenaries last year, according to VTsIOM.
Other reports had already hinted at a drop in Kremlin popularity after the Kursk attack.
An analysis of Russian mainstream and social media by FilterLabs, a US-based company, eight days ago, said that although Russian propaganda had remained unflinchingly pro-Putin, data from the Kursk region showed “real frustration with the Russian government” because people felt the Russian leader “deserved some of the blame”.
Such direct attacks on Putin are comparatively rare in Russia, where ordinary people’s frustrations are normally directed at lower-ranking officials.
Peter Pomerantsev, an author of books on Kremlin propaganda, said that the invasion of Kursk had rattled Russians’ confidence.
“While state media in Russia is deflecting blame away from the ‘dear leader’ for Ukraine’s success, on social media and inside Kursk sentiment towards Putin is dipping hard,” he said.
Mark Galeotti, an honorary professor at UCL, said that using social media to gauge public support for Putin had its limitations but the FilterLabs’s report was still useful.
“Given the limitations of conventional polling in an authoritarian regime, arguably this is as good an index of public sentiment as any,” he said.
Analysts have also questioned whether Putin’s officially high popularity rating can be believed at all because many Russians feel pressured into backing him.
In March, Putin won a presidential election in Russia with a record 88.5 per cent of the vote, although independent election observers described it as fraud.