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That’s one way to avoid negative headlines …
Managing public perception is a delicate balancing act for any government in power.
When the mood of a nation shifts, the numbers that track public sentiment usually tell the story first.
But what happens when those numbers stop looking good? Sometimes, the easiest option is to simply hide the data from view.
That seems to be happening right now in Russia
Hiding the numbers
The country’s state-owned polling agency, known as VTsIOM, has quietly stopped publishing a specific type of public trust data regarding Vladimir Putin.
The Moscow Times reported that the agency skipped its scheduled data releases for both April and May. For years, this specific “open” poll asked citizens to name politicians they trusted without giving them a list of prompts.
By June, those updates had vanished entirely.
A sharp drop
The decision to halt the publications came right after the president’s numbers hit a historic low.
In the final published poll from March, less than one-third of respondents named Putin as a trusted leader. His score plummeted to just 29.5 percent. That is his lowest rating since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began.
Meanwhile, the agency continues to share its “closed” polls. These surveys ask a much more direct question: do you trust Putin? When put that way, the Russian leader still scores above 70 percent.
Still, his broader weekly approval numbers are falling fast. Even after a recent shift to door-to-door interviews, approval dropped to 66.6 percent by late May.
Deepening public fatigue
Observers suggest these declining numbers point to a deeper problem inside the country. Life under a prolonged conflict is wearing thin. So, the economic reality is catching up with ordinary citizens.
As the war in Ukraine grinds on with no clear end in sight, the Russians are feeling the strain of high inflation, labor shortages and rumors of a new round of mobilization to replenish the Russian personnel losses, inching close to one percent of the enitre pre-war population in Russia.
In an attempt to strengthen control over the digital space, the Kremlin has blocekd a number of messaging apps, including WhatsApp and the popular Telegram, as well as a number of other foreign services.
Instead, the Russian public is being nudged into using the state-sponsored MAX app, which has been accused of working as a surveillance tool
Political analyst Ilya Grashchenkov described the national mood as a mix of growing pressure and exhaustion.
He noted that the public sentiment is turning into a single emotion: “We can continue to live like this, but we want to live less and less”.
