The People and The Party Are Not United: polls show a significant gap between Russians' preferences and the authorities' priorities

The norms of ‘participation’ and ‘non-participation’

Data from the latest survey wave of the Chronicles project indicates the ongoing demobilisation of the Russian population with respect to the war in Ukraine. The proportion of people who feel it necessary to demonstrate personal involvement on the front or solidarity with it is declining.

Re:Russia has published a preview of data obtained during the 15th survey wave of the project in October 2025, which will be presented in a detailed report shortly. Recall that the 'Chronicles' project was launched after the start of the war by politician Alexey Minyaylo, with the participation of the ExtremeScan team and independent sociologists. Alongside the Levada Centre and a few other projects, 'Chronicles' is one of the few regular, and therefore unique, sources of independent survey data on Russians’ attitudes towards the war and associated social and political processes.

One feature of wartime surveys is that response distributions on politically sensitive questions change only modestly. People have largely developed their own rules and ways of communicating with others about the conflict. (It should also be noted that, under conditions of war and a repressive climate, survey data are likely skewed towards more loyal contingents → Re:Russia: Pro-war Spring.)

To clarify respondents’ attitudes towards the war, the 'Chronicles' project regularly asks a question on this topic phrased in a way that, unlike the Levada Centre’s analogous question, allows those surveyed to avoid giving a definitive answer: 'Do you support or not support Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, are you unsure, or do you prefer not to answer this question?' As a result, the proportion of those surveyed avoiding the question in the first year of the war was 31%, rising to 35%, and reaching 39% in the most recent year. Accordingly, those answering affirmatively ('yes, I support') are people who feel it necessary to express support for military actions, even though they had the option to abstain (we refer to such support as 'declarative'). Their share was around 62% in spring 2022, falling to 58% by the end of the year, 55% in 2023–early 2024, and approximately 50% over the last year. In October 2025, the figure remained unchanged compared to October 2024.

Chart 1. ‘Do you support or not support Russia's military operation in Ukraine, find it difficult to answer unequivocally, or do not want to answer this question?’, 2022–2025, % of those surveyed

At the same time, in response to another question in the survey, which assesses attitudes towards the war on a more personal level – 'Would you be willing to take part in the ‘special operation’ in Ukraine yourself?' (asked only of men) – a rather significant shift can be observed. The proportion of those declaring their willingness to 'take part' fell from 57% at the beginning of 2023 to 47% at the end of 2024, and dropped a further 10 percentage points, to 37%, in the current October (Table 1). In the first stage, in 2024, the decline was in those prepared to participate 'under orders', that is, to fulfil their military duty in the event of mobilisation (from 42% to 32%), while the share of potential 'volunteers' remained stable (15%). Over the past year, both groups, 'volunteers' and those willing to fight under mobilisation, decreased by 5 percentage points.

Table 1. ‘Are you yourself ready to participate in the 'special operation' in Ukraine?’, 2023–2025, % of those surveyed

Responses to this question appear to reflect not so much the respondents’ actual willingness to go to the front, but rather their perceptions of the normative (socially 'correct' in the eyes of others) response. Notably, among the men who declared a willingness to volunteer for the front, only half were asked whether they had actually taken such steps. Across all four waves, only a third of the declarative 'volunteers' answered positively, which is equivalent to 5% of all respondents in the earlier surveys and 3% in the most recent one.

At the beginning of 2023, only 20% of those surveyed said they were unwilling to participate in the 'special operation' in any form; by the turn of 2024–2025, this had risen to 30%, and by autumn 2025 it reached around 40%. This trend points to a gradual shift in the norm: the declaration of unwillingness to participate in the 'special operation' is becoming increasingly socially 'appropriate' and acceptable, while the norm of demonstrating willingness is losing ground. In 2023, the share adhering to the norm of showing 'participation' was three times that of those adhering to the norm of 'non-participation'; a year later, the ratio had fallen to 1.5, and by autumn 2025 roughly equal numbers, about 40% of those surveyed, adhered to each norm.

In a broader sense, the question of willingness to participate personally tests attitudes towards the officially promoted idea, propagated by state media, that the war in Ukraine should be seen as 'popular' or 'patriotic.' The trends in responses indicate a failure of such efforts. This dynamic, reflecting the normalisation of marked detachment from sympathy for the front, corresponds with trends in responses to the question about signing a military contract, which is periodically asked by the Levada Centre. In May 2023, more than 50% of those surveyed said they would approve of a family member or close person signing a contract with the Ministry of Defence, while 40% said they would not. By October 2024, the approving and disapproving groups were roughly equal. In the October 2025 survey, the ratio stood at 30% in favour versus 55% against.

Graph 2. ‘If a member of your family or a close friend signed a contract to participate in a 'special operation', would you be more likely to approve or disapprove of such a decision?’ 2023–2025, % of those surveyed

The shift in the norm of demonstrating complicity and sympathy for the war appears to reflect not only fatigue with the protracted conflict and its partial reassessment, but also the changed informational and propaganda context. At the beginning of 2023, propaganda framing the 'special military operation' as a kind of 'patriotic war' was carried out through two parallel channels: the official television propaganda channel and the 'informal' channel of 'military bloggers,' who promoted a 'Prigozhinist' discourse of brutal honesty regarding the war. However, Prigozhin’s rebellion revealed to the Kremlin the potential danger of the second type of propaganda, which attributed responsibility for the war’s failures and losses to the Moscow bureaucracy and carried a critical stance towards the Putin-led military-bureaucratic elite. Over the past year and a half, the Kremlin has deliberately curtailed the influence of these 'military bloggers' and the emotional intensity of their discourse. Finally, the consistent commercialisation of the war has also played a role, undermining its image as 'popular' even in the eyes of those ordinary citizens who, at one stage, had embraced this propaganda discourse and actively participated in fundraising for the front, weaving camouflage nets, and other related activities.

Between the desired and the expected

At the beginning of 2024, the 'Chronicles' collective conducted a survey experiment that produced truly remarkable results. In the run-up to the presidential election, sociologists randomly divided respondents into equal groups and asked the first group to indicate which policies or decisions they expected in Vladimir Putin’s new presidential term, and the second group to indicate which policies or decisions they wished to see. The experiment was repeated in September 2024 and October 2025.

In the first variant of the question (expected policies/decisions), respondents were asked about the decisions of Putin and his circle that they considered likely. As Table 2 shows, both at the beginning of 2024 and now, 35–42% of those surveyed consider a new mobilisation likely (today somewhat fewer than a year ago). As for the 'end of the war once its objectives are achieved,' a progressively smaller proportion of respondents believe this: over the past year and a half it has fallen by 8 percentage points. Only around a third see a truce or the achievement of a compromise peace agreement with Ukraine as likely. By contrast, almost 80% consider further increases in military spending probable. The lifting of sanctions on Russia seems likely to only 20% of those surveyed, while the restoration of relations with the West is deemed slightly more probable, but still a minority view (30%).

Table 2. Policies and decisions of the Russian authorities expected by respondents, 2024–2025, % of those surveyed

An important point of the experiment is that those respondents who answered the question about desired events did not think about what their colleagues who answered the first version of the question had to think about: the priorities of the Russian authorities. As a result, the two streams of responses reveal the gap between the decisions and policies desired by respondents and those they expect from the Russian authorities. Across all questions and in all three waves, this gap averages 25–27 percentage points.

This means that at least 25% of those surveyed would wish for a particular event or political decision than consider it likely under the current government. For example, 35–42% consider a new mobilisation quite possible, but only 15–22% would like to see it. Between 48–56% believe the authorities will focus on domestic policy, whereas 83–88% would see this as a desirable scenario (such consensus points to public fatigue with the Kremlin’s focus on external confrontation). Around two-thirds of those surveyed (63–64%) would like a compromise agreement with Ukraine to be signed, but only 36% consider such a scenario likely.

Finally, in the question regarding the restoration of relations with Western countries, we observe a significant shift over the past year: in autumn 2024, 50% mentioned it as a desired outcome, and by autumn 2025 this had risen to around 60%. However, only half as many respondents believe such an outcome is likely under the current government. The largest gaps between desired and expected outcomes appear in the questions concerning the end of the special military operation (an ever-larger share of 88% in the latest surveyed, see it as desirable, while fewer consider it likely), the redirection of the authorities’ attention to domestic issues, and the issue of sanctions. In the most recent surveys, 64–65% indicated these scenarios as desirable, but only just over 20% consider them probable.

Table 3. Policies and decisions of the Russian authorities desired by respondents and the gap between expected and desired policies, 2024–2025, % of those surveyed

Thus, the survey experiment conducted by the Chronicles project, replicated in three iterations, demonstrates that the policies and decisions desired by respondents are consistently shifted towards more liberal positions than those they expect from the Russian authorities, on average by 25 percentage points. On the one hand, the 'Chronicles' experiment provides a strong argument against the claim that Kremlin policy reflects the basic expectations of Russian society. Survey data clearly contradict this assumption. On the other hand, it is important to recognise that if the two variants of the question – 'What policies will the Russian authorities pursue?' and 'What policies do you consider preferable?' – had been posed sequentially to the same respondents, their answers would likely have been more inclined towards pro-government scenarios.