Polls conducted in the second half of April by the Levada Centre and ExtremeScan demonstrate that official propaganda has largely achieved its goals: Russians, at least those who participate in polling, overwhelmingly support the official narrative that Ukraine and the West were behind the terror attack at Crocus City Hall. The results of the two sociological centres were remarkably similar. The difference lies in the fact that in the Levada Centre poll, respondents could give more than one answer. As a result, 37% of respondents to both questions attributed responsibility for the terrorist attack to the West, 9-11% to Islamist extremism, and another 4% to some ‘forces inside Russia’ or Russian special services. The last group is sceptical of the official version of events and assumes that some kind of internal Russian conspiracy is behind the terrorist attack. 21-24% were unable to choose one version of events. In the ExtremeScan poll 27% attributed responsibility to Ukraine, and in the Levada Centre poll this was 50%. However, when calculating the total number, it becomes clear that the ability to give more than one answer in the Levada Centre poll led those who named the ‘West’ also to indicate ‘Ukraine’ as the perpetrator. The ‘Western’ and ‘Ukrainian’ versions, as in the rhetoric of the Russian authorities, are essentially perceived as one in public opinion.
Summarising the data, it can be said that about 65% of respondents reproduce the official narrative, attributing the planning of the terrorist attack to the West and/or Ukraine. The 13-15% who chose the answers ‘Islamic extremism’ and ‘forces/special services inside Russia’ supported an alternative narrative, rejecting the official version. And, 20% or slightly more found it difficult to answer.
Although the Kremlin has succeeded in imposing its version of the reasons for the terrorist attack on the majority represented in these surveys in informational and symbolic terms, a more detailed analysis shows that this susceptibility is almost entirely dependent on the respondent's overall attitudes toward the political regime and the ‘special military operation’.
‘The analysis of ExtremeScan data allows us to conclude that there is a prism of political loyalty in the interpretation of the events of the terrorist attack,’ writes Elena Koneva, Founder and Chief Researcher of the ExtremeScan agency, in her review of this data. ‘Loyalists’ (i.e. those who approve of Putin, are confident in the fairness of past elections, have a more optimistic view of the economy, are hostile to the West, and approve of the death penalty; this makes up 64% of those surveyed) support the propaganda version which assigns the responsibility to Ukraine and the West, while ‘sceptics’ (i.e. those who hold opinions diametrically opposite to those of the ‘loyalists’; this makes up 13% of those surveyed) tend to place the blame on ISIS or ‘some forces inside Russia.’ The same applies to other issues related to the terrorist attack. Thus, for example, political position is the reason for the divergence in the assessments of the Russian security agencies’ reactions to the terrorist attack: 57% of ‘loyalists’ believe that this reaction was successful and effective, while 97% of ‘sceptics’ assess this as a failure.
As can be seen from the diagrams, the patterns of support for the official and alternative (oppositional) narratives in groups with different political attitudes and with different attitudes to the war are almost mirror images. However, there are some differences. Loyalists are more consolidated; among this group 70-75% support the official narrative and only about 5% do not support it. While among opposition-minded respondents 40-60% support the alternative narrative, and between 20% to 40% are ready to support the official version of events. Meanwhile, among those who do not personally support the ‘special military operation’ and are among those who do not support the war, the groups are almost equal: 43% support the alternative narrative and 37% support the official narrative.
However, generally speaking, the two groups holding diametrically opposed views are quite consistent, and the real picture of attitudes towards the terrorist attack depends on how fully opposition-minded groups are represented in the sample (in conditions of repression and the widespread psychological pressure of propaganda, opposition-minded people may more frequently refrain from participating in polls).
The terrorist attack in a concert hall near Moscow has predictably had an impact on Russian citizens' sense of personal security. According to the Levada Centre, the share of those who fear that someone close to them or the respondent himself could become a victim of a terrorist attack has increased by 18 percentage points compared to 2023 and amounts to 73% of those surveyed. The last time this figure reached such a level was after the St Petersburg metro tragedy in 2017 (78%). According to ExtremeScan, in 2024, the threat of terror attacks (64%) is tied in first place with price increases (65%) in the ranking of personal threats (to self and family).
However, political polarisation can also be noted in the perception of threats. Among those who believe that President Putin's activities contribute to solving problems in the country (78% in the ExtremeScan sample), the greatest number of those surveyed (65%) fear the threat of terrorist attacks, and almost as many (62%) fear rising prices. Among those who believe that Putin's activities do not contribute to solving the problems in the country, the overwhelming majority, 83%, fear price increases, while almost the same number, 82%, fear a worsening of their financial situation. 69% fear abuse by law enforcers, and in this group only 61% fear possible terrorist attacks. In other words, ‘sceptics’ are more focused on internal socio-economic problems.
‘Diseases, man-made disasters, the threat of nuclear weapons and shelling from Ukraine are also areas where the camps overlap,’ comments Elena Koneva. However, the risks of price rises, worsening financial situation, redundancy, mobilisation and abuse by the security forces differ so radically that it is as if the groups live in different countries. Putin's supporters are 1.5-2.5 times more optimistic about the personal threat caused by these issues.
When it comes to threats to Russia's security as a whole, the area of consensus is much smaller, apparently because the threats here are at the level of the state and thus speak more clearly about the capacity of the authorities, and so this is the zone of disagreement between the political groups.
Against this backdrop, it is striking that in all political groups ‘corruption in power’ occupies first place in the list of personal and public threats. This is a subject of absolute consensus. As Elena Koneva rightly notes, corruption is ‘an umbrella euphemism for criticism of the authorities’, but for loyal groups such criticism appears to be confined in a narrow sphere and is adjacent to support for official ‘geopolitical’ narratives and economic optimism.
This is also emphasised by the most significant effect of the terrorist attack evident in the survey. According to ExtremeScan, while in January-March the proportion of those who said that they support the ‘special military operation’ fluctuated between 46-56% (with an average of 52%), in the April measurement it was 61%. At the same time, the share of those who openly do not support the war has not decreased (15%), but the share of those who refuse to answer the question or are undecided has sharply decreased. The number of those surveyed who are not ready to withdraw troops from Ukraine and transition to peace talks has also increased. While in February 2024, 48% were in favour of withdrawing troops from Ukraine ‘if Vladimir Putin were to make such a decision’, and 32% of those surveyed would not support the withdrawal of troops, both positions converged in April at 44%.
Questions about support for the war in the survey were asked at the end, after the questions about the ‘perpetrators’ of the terrorist attack. For those who accepted the official narrative, as Elena Koneva notes, ‘the terror attack appeared to be a material confirmation of Putin's myth about the civilisational nature of the war’. Control over the interpretation of events has allowed the Kremlin to relegate domestic socio-economic and political problems to the background and, at the same time, to bring existential fears and threats to the forefront. As a result, it has been able to mitigate its own catastrophic failure, that is the fact it ignored detailed warnings of the terrorist attack from the US and Iranian intelligence services. As a result, the Levada Centre poll shows that only 22% believe that Russian special services are responsible for the unpreventable terrorist attack. While about half (48%) believe that it was made possible thanks to the support of foreign intelligence services.