(Bloomberg) -- Support for President Vladimir Putin has surged among Russians following his invasion of Ukraine, according to the country's leading independent pollster, even as a Kremlin crackdown on protest raises questions about public willingness to express opposition to the war.
Some 83% approved of Putin's actions as president in a March 24-30 survey of 1,632 respondents, an increase of 12 percentage points on the previous month and the highest since 2017, the Moscow-based Levada Center reported. The proportion agreeing the country is headed in the right direction jumped 17 percentage points to 69%, the highest since Levada began recording responses in 1996.
“It looks very similar to the situation in 2014 in terms of the developing conflict with the West” when Putin's rating soared to unprecedented heights after he annexed Crimea, Denis Volkov, Levada's director said. Even those offering lukewarm support in general for the president agreed that “he's doing the right thing” in Ukraine because they accepted the official argument that Russia is under threat from NATO, he said.
The swing in public mood follows years of declining support for Putin amid anger at unpopular pension reforms and stagnating living standards since his fourth presidential term began in 2018. Putin cast the invasion he began Feb. 24 as a response to the refusal of the U.S. and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies to provide Russia with guarantees that included banning Ukraine from ever joining the military alliance.
He also demanded NATO pull back forces to positions held in 1997, claiming its expansion threatens Russia's security.
Putin has said Ukraine may develop nuclear weapons, an allegation rejected by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Russian officials have also accused Ukraine of hosting U.S. biological weapons laboratories as part of plots to attack Russia, claims dismissed as “preposterous” by Washington and the government in Kyiv.
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“Russian people believe the West is trying to destroy Russia,” said Gleb Pavlovsky, who was a Kremlin political adviser during Putin's first decade in power. Sweeping international sanctions imposed in response to the war “will only unite the population” behind Putin as the consequences become more visible to ordinary Russians by summer, he said.
The ruble slumped to unprecedented lows against the dollar in the early days of the war amid sanctions and an exodus of foreign companies from the Russian market. Tens of thousands of Russians fled abroad, fearful of a political backlash. The currency has since strengthened to near its pre-war level and most Russians are only beginning to feel the impact of rising prices and shortages of goods.
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State TV has cast the fighting as a war of “liberation” to aid Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk regions, while devoting little attention to Russian assaults on the capital Kyiv and other major cities. It has sought to shift blame for massive destruction inflicted by Russia's military on those cities by claiming it was the work of Ukrainian “nationalists.”
While Russians greeted Crimea's annexation with “euphoria,” the public mood now is more serious, Volkov said. “Society has seen this from the very beginning as a defensive war,” he said.
Still, it's hard to gauge levels of discontent accurately in a country where people have long grown used to saying what they think the Kremlin wants to hear, to avoid the attention of Russia's security services. Russia has designated Levada a “foreign agent” under a law imposing strict monitoring rules on civil society groups.
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Authorities have harshly punished dissent over the war, sending riot police to crush street protests and detaining even lone demonstrators, while encouraging a patriotic frenzy involving displays of the “Z” symbol seen on Russian military vehicles in Ukraine.
Putin vowed to cleanse Russia of “scum and traitors” he accused of working secretly for the U.S. and its allies in televised comments on March 16.
He signed legislation this month to punish “fake news” about Russia's military abroad with fines and imprisonment for up to 15 years, making it illegal even to describe the operations in Ukraine as a war. Many domestic and international news organizations halted work in Russia in response.
Opposition activist Maxim Katz said he organized a poll of Russians on the war this month which showed 69% in favor and only 19% against.
“Most people don't believe in this, it doesn't fill them with any enthusiasm, but they're not ready to speak out against it,” Katz said. “The authorities are behaving very aggressively, they've made it clear they'll crack down on anyone who is critical.”
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