Dissatisfaction with Putin's policies has reached a 20-year high

Dissatisfaction with the Kremlin’s foreign policy among Russians has risen sharply, reaching a record high over the past two decades, according to a VTsIOM poll. Sociologists have noted a significant drop in support for the government’s policies amid a protracted war and growing fatigue from the conflict with the West, Russian media report.

According to the survey results, in April, the share of Russians who said they were “generally dissatisfied” with the government’s foreign policy rose to 26%—the highest figure since 2007. By comparison, in April 2025, such responses were nearly half as many, and since last November, the increase has been 11 percentage points.

At the same time, support for the official line is waning: the number of those who are “generally satisfied” with foreign policy fell from 59% in December to 46% in April. As a result, the VTsIOM’s composite index dropped to 41 points, matching the record low of 2021.

Political analyst Alexander Morozov, in a comment for The Moscow Times, attributes the shift in sentiment to disappointment over inflated expectations regarding a swift end to the war and foreign policy agreements. “The high figures from spring 2025 reflect the optimistic headlines in the Russian media, which promised that the war was about to end under pressure from Trump on Kyiv. Then it became clear that the ‘spirit of Anchorage’ had vanished, and everything went downhill,” he noted.

Another political analyst, Abbas Gallyamov, speaks of public fatigue from the protracted conflict and fear of further escalation. “People are tired of an endless and unsuccessful war; they are frightened by the prospect of a major war with NATO; they want normalization of relations with the outside world, but see only escalation,” he said.

Gallyamov also links the sharp shift in public sentiment to the symbolic moment when the war’s duration exceeded that of World War II, which, he says, intensified feelings of disappointment and the loss of the “promised revenge.”