August Sociology: Russian public opinion between holiday season and crisis

Interim ratings

The much-discussed ‘Putin ratings’, the decline of which caused a stir this spring, stabilised in July–August. Approval of Putin according to FOM (the question ‘Is President V. Putin doing a good or a bad job in his post?’) averaged 82% from November 2024 to September 2025 and stood at 80% until February 2026, before falling to 75% in late March–early June and to 70% in late June–August. According to the Levada Center (the question ‘Do you tend to approve or disapprove of Vladimir Putin’s performance as President of Russia?’), the overall picture is similar, with the difference that the rating held at 85% or above from autumn 2024 to the end of 2025, slid to 80% in March 2026 and to 75% over the summer months. According to both polls, the decline thus amounted to 10 percentage points since the end of last year and occurred mainly in the spring and early summer of this year, but has recently levelled off.

Both figures, the current ratings of 70% and 75%, appear extremely high for a ‘normal’, that is, non-authoritarian, country. In authoritarian countries, indicators of trust in the authorities are subject to a degree of ‘inflation’. In Russia over the last 20 years, a decline in Putin’s approval ratings to the 60–65% range has been an indicator of relatively low trust in the regime, with conditions for mass protests and open discontent typically arising at these levels. Conversely, ratings of 75–85% are typical of ‘rally round the flag’ periods, when support for the authorities among those surveyed by sociologists reaches unprecedented levels. Today, approval ratings lie in an intermediate zone between high and low figures, although it is important to note that the ‘cost’ of disloyalty (and, presumably, of participating in polls) has risen under current circumstances.

In a survey conducted in July this year (the survey data is available to the editorial team), the ExtremeScan project asked an unconventional question: ‘In your opinion, are Vladimir Putin’s actions helping to resolve the problems facing the country?’ 59% of those surveyed answered that they do, and 21% that they do not. When asked the following question: ‘Would it be better for Russia if Vladimir Putin remained at the helm of the country for as long as possible?’, 54% of those surveyed agreed with this view, whilst 29% said a new leader should be found as soon as possible. This data suggests that, among those taking part in the surveys, the majority view Putin positively, but this is not an overwhelming majority.

The deterioration in assessments of the state of affairs in the country (as measured in regular surveys by the Levada Center) has outpaced the decline in Putin’s approval rating. Positive assessments (‘things are moving in the right direction’) stood at 70% or higher for most of 2025, fell to 65% at the start of 2026, then to 60% in March, reaching a low of 52% in June before rising to 56% in August. Overall, following a period of significant decline between March and June, we observed stabilisation across a wide range of indicators in August, either a halt to the decline or a slight improvement. However, this holiday-related ‘positive’ trend in August is a fairly common phenomenon, which can be interpreted as a ‘seasonal factor’ in mass surveys (a similar positive shift in indicators is also frequently observed during the ‘festive’ month of January). In September, this may give way to a fresh wave of pessimism as people return from their holiday to their everyday lives.

The information and emotional backdrop: from shock to normalisation

Be that as it may, it is now fair to say that July marked a local culmination in the declining assessments of the current situation, waning trust in the authorities and growing pessimism, which has been observed since the start of the year and particularly since March–April. Compared with June–July, when Ukrainian attacks on Russian infrastructure reached a qualitatively new level, the news landscape in August (according to FOM’s measurements) appears calmer, and the shock caused by the intensity of Ukrainian drone strikes on oil refineries and Wildberries warehouses has somewhat subsided. In June–July, 15–18% of those surveyed (17% on average) cited news of the ‘special military operation’ and the Russian army’s successes among the week’s most memorable events, whilst Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory were cited by between 14 and 30% (22% on average). Despite being consistently downplayed in the Russian media, the topic of Ukrainian attacks overshadowed the narrative of the Russian army’s ‘successes’ and advances (sometimes by a factor of two, see Figure 1). The prevalence of a predominantly negative news backdrop was exacerbated by the petrol crisis, which was at its most acute throughout July. In August, however, we observed a waning of this media frenzy, which had been particularly noticeable in the previous weeks. The topic of the petrol crisis is also relatively weakly present in the news agenda, which may, however, reflect not so much the actual level of fuel shortages as the normalisation of petrol-related problems in respondents’ perception.

Figure 1. Summer news landscape (memorable events), 2026, % of those surveyed

Indicators of emotional state also stabilised in August, having shown a significant decline in the first half of the year and settled into a new phase. For instance, FOM’s ‘Mood of those around you’ indicator (‘In your opinion, what mood prevails today amongst your family, friends, colleagues and acquaintances – calm or anxious?’) showed a positive balance of +13 percentage points in 2025 and early 2026, moved into negative territory in April (–9 percentage points for May–June) and stabilised at –15 percentage points for the remainder of the summer (Figure 2). To interpret this indicator meaningfully, it is worth bearing in mind that during the three weeks of ‘partial’ mobilisation in the autumn of 2022, it stood at –42 percentage points, whilst in the first year of the pandemic it averaged the same level of –15 percentage points. Thus, the emotional climate of the summer months of 2026 can be characterised as highly negative, but by no means at a crisis level.

Figure 2. ‘Mood of those around you’, 2025–2026, % of those surveyed

Factors contributing to the deterioration: political frustrations and financial circumstances

It appears that the war, along with the anxieties, restrictions and frustrations associated with it, weighs more heavily on general assessments of the situation and on loyalty to the regime than do economic factors. For example, assessments of the political situation in Russia have deteriorated sharply: according to data from the Levada Center, 70% of those surveyed in July described it as tense and critical, compared with 58% in January. This figure is only slightly lower than that recorded in September 2022 amid the announcement of mobilisation (77%). Follow-up questions reveal a hierarchy of factors contributing to these negative assessments, with the war and its consequences occupying a dominant position. Meanwhile, in July, around two thirds of those surveyed experienced problems accessing mobile internet and social media, as well as petrol shortages.

Figure 3. Top eight factors contributing to negative assessments of the political situation, July 2026, % of those surveyed who assessed the situation as tense, critical or explosive (open-ended question)

The deterioration in economic assessments has been more gradual. In 2025, 24% of those surveyed by FOM described their financial situation as good, whilst 17% described it as poor. In February–July 2026, the ratio stood at 23% to 19%; in the latest August survey, it was 22% to 22%, although this is the only instance of such an even distribution so far. The proportion of those who said that their personal financial situation had worsened over recent months averaged at 18% in 2025, 23–26% in the spring of 2026 and 28% in July–August. In the ‘inFOM’ surveys commissioned by the Central Bank, respondents are asked about changes in their financial situation over the past year and their expectations for the future. Here, we observe the same gradual decline in assessments: the proportions of these groups have shifted smoothly by 5–6 percentage points since the first half of 2025 (Table 1). What stands out, however, is the rise in pessimism in forward-looking assessments this summer against a backdrop of stabilising assessments of the present. This also appears to be evidence of a seasonal, holiday-related effect, where the potential problems of everyday life are put on hold until a return to everyday routine.

Table 1. Change in assessments of financial circumstances over the past year, 2025–2026, % of those surveyed

Finally, regarding respondents’ political sentiments, it should be noted that throughout August there was a noticeable deterioration in their attitude towards the upcoming elections (according to data from FOM’s weekly surveys). Whilst on 9 August 10% said they would not vote and 16% found it difficult to say who they would vote for, by 23 August the proportion in the first group had risen to 16% and in the second to 22% (on 30 August, the figures were 15% and 20%, respectively). In other words, as the election date drew nearer, the proportion of undecided voters and those not intending to vote rose by 12 percentage points over the course of two weeks. In the first survey, ‘Yabloko’ appeared on the list of parties with a rating of 4%, and all the parties named in it together scored 74%. In the 23 August survey, following Yabloko's removal, the parties remaining on the list scored only 62% (64% in the 30 August survey). Thus, the ‘Yabloko effect’, that is, the impact of the party’s disqualification, appears to be more significant here than its actual rating. Judging by this data, the effect lay not so much in the fact that those surveyed intended to vote for ‘Yabloko’, but in the fact that the party’s exclusion from the election brought into sharp relief the context of repression and lack of genuine alternatives.

Perceptions of the war: a shift or a breakdown?

The Levada Center’s figures on support for the war, gathered through face-to-face polling, have traditionally been not only the highest but also the most static. Throughout 2024–2025 they remained practically unchanged: 45% told pollsters they ‘definitely’ and 32% that they ‘tend to’ support the war. Likewise, 9% and 7% ‘tend to’ and ‘definitely’ did not support it. Slight changes here also began from February–March 2026 and intensified towards summer: in June–August, 35% ‘definitely’ supported the war in the polls, and 32% ‘tended to’ support it. The share of non-supporters rose to an average of 22% in the summer months, up from 16%.

A slightly different picture of attitudes towards the ‘special operation’ and declarative support for or opposition to it emerges from the ExtremeScan project’s surveys (Figure 4). Here, from the very start of the war, respondents were immediately offered, in addition to the ‘support / do not support’ options, two ways to avoid giving a direct answer (‘I find it difficult to say’ and ‘I do not wish to answer’). As a result, declared support for the war (where a respondent states their support despite having the option to avoid answering) stood at 63% in the first months of the war, with 9% opposed and 28% avoiding a direct answer. The proportion of supporters then declined gradually (to 55%), initially due to an increase in those evading the question (to 35%), and subsequently due to a slight rise in the number of opponents of the war (to 14%). However, in July this year, those surveyed were asked a direct ‘do you support or not support’ question without any prompts allowing them to evade an answer. As a result, the proportion of supporters was only a few percentage points lower than in March (47%), whilst the proportion of those opposed jumped to 35% (18% still did not give a definite answer). This result suggests that roughly half of those who previously avoided answering have now moved into the camp of those opposing the war, causing a sharp rise in the proportion of declarative non-support.

Figure 4. Trends in support for military action in ExtremeScan surveys, 2022–2026, % of those surveyed

It is possible that this result (which differs significantly from the Levada Center’s data) was influenced both by the survey method (ExtremeScan uses telephone polling) and by the fact that the question regarding attitudes towards the ‘special operation’ is preceded in the questionnaire by another of ExtremeScan’s signature questions: ‘Do the majority of people close to you support or oppose the military operation?’ In February 2025, 50% said that the majority of people around them supported the war, and 13% said that the majority did not. In March 2026, the proportion of those surrounded by pro-war sentiment fell to 44%, whilst the proportion of those living amongst anti-war sentiment rose to 15%. However, in the July survey, the proportion of the former fell to 30%, whilst that of the latter doubled, reaching the same figure. Whilst definitive conclusions regarding ExtremeScan’s striking figures should only be drawn after further surveys, the underlying trend suggests that even when there is little public discussion on the sensitive topic of war, people begin to misjudge the sentiments of the ‘imagined majority’ in search of support for their own views. After all, when asked ‘Do you support the “military operation”?’, it is far easier to reply, ‘I think almost no one supports it anymore’.

Apart from the general, moderate decline in support for military action, two key shifts in attitudes towards the war should be noted in the Levada Center’s data. First, perceptions of the Russian army’s success have fallen to a record low: the proportion of those who believe that the ‘special military operation’ is ‘progressing successfully’ has fallen from 69% last summer to 50% in July this year (by almost 20 percentage points), whilst the proportion of those who believe it is not progressing successfully has risen from 17% to 28%. Second, perceptions regarding the possible timeframe for the war’s conclusion also appear to be at a record low (Figure 5). The proportion of those who expect a relatively swift end to hostilities (in less than a year) has also reached its lowest level since the war began (21%), whilst the proportion of those believing it will last more than a year has reached its highest (55%). In January, the figures stood at 30% against 32%. This shift also serves as an indirect gauge not only of the likelihood of a peace agreement, but also of the Russian army’s ability to achieve the objectives set by Putin.

Figure 5. Expected timing of the war’s end, 2022–2026, % of those surveyed

It can thus be regarded as an incontrovertible fact, at this point, that pessimism is deepening regarding the prospects of the war ending and the Russian army's ability to ‘achieve the objectives of the special military operation’, as well as a decline in support for the war. However, the extent of this decline remains an open question: data from the Levada Center paints a picture of a fairly moderate decline in support and an increase in the group declaring opposition to the war (from 15% to 22%), whilst data from ExtremeScan indicates an explosive expansion of the group declaring opposition to the war (from 15% to 35%).

Appendix. Summer news landscape (memorable events), 2026, % of those surveyed