Putin's war immunity is eroding

MoscowThis summer, Vladimir Putin's popularity among Russians has dropped from 83% to 79%. These are extremely high figures for a leader, but the decline reflects a certain discontent among the population. The reason is the average 12% increase in the prices of basic services in a context of skyrocketing inflation. Furthermore, the Russian president's approval rating could drop even further at the end of August, coinciding with the time when families buy school supplies.

According to journalist Andrei Pertsev in the independent Russian mediaRiddleThis drop in Putin's popularity indicates that he may be losing his war immunity. In other words, neither the shock of the war in Ukraine nor the patriotic fervor it aroused would be enough to distract citizens from domestic problems, who would look to the Kremlin for accountability. A survey by the independent Levada Center concludes that, indeed, 58% of Russians consider rising prices to be their main cause for concern. But do they really blame the president?

Moscow is a city that deliberately turns its back on the war, and even more so in the summer, when residents flood parks and gardens to take advantage of the few weeks of good weather. However, it has rained a lot this year. Not since Putin's first summer as president, 25 years ago, has there been such a rainy summer. Furthermore, the centralized heating system creates the paradox that in some homes it is colder at the beginning and end of summer (on Sant Joan night, the minimum reached 10 degrees Celsius), when the radiators are off, than in the middle of winter, when they are working at full blast and people walk around the house in short sleeves.

Muscovites dread autumn. Ani, a young mother of four, tells ARA that every time she hears about a price increase for basic services, she thinks: "My God, I'll have to cut back somewhere and see how I can earn more money." Nadejda owns a cosmetics business and doesn't know how to manage: "The rent, the electricity, the water bills are going up, and yet I can't double the price of my products like everyone else." Now, when asked who's to blame, the vehemence of the complaint fades. "I can't do anything to change the price increase, I can't change the policy, I can't say anything else. We just have to adapt, that's it," says Ani. "I can't" three times.

Apolitical Citizens

A sociologist interviewed by this newspaper, declared a foreign agent by the Russian government, laments that people "don't see a causal relationship between increased military spending and rising prices." In his opinion, Putin has managed to make the vast majority of Russian citizens feel alienated from politics, powerless, incapable of influencing them, and therefore "completely defenseless and vulnerable to the arbitrariness of the state."

Some, like Vladimir, born in the Soviet Union of the Five-Year Plans, make light of the difficulties of making ends meet by appealing to the uncontrollable fluctuations of the market. "The laws of economics are inevitable. Name me a country where prices don't rise," he asserts with conviction. The sociologist points out that it is common for Russians, instead of seeking a reasonable explanation for social problems, to treat them "almost like biblical disasters."

In Russia, television is the preeminent source of information and, as such, being completely controlled by the Kremlin, is the most effective means of propaganda. In contrast, barely 14% of citizens read independent newspapers, which report the bad news, a percentage not far below the approximately 20% of Russians who oppose Putin.

The opulence of Moscow's summer

In Moscow's Bolotnaya Square, the epicenter of the protests against the Russian president's inauguration in 2012, the City Council has set up an open-air discotheque with an Ibizan flair for families to enjoy in the evening. A demonstration like the one thirteen years ago would be unthinkable today, when the police even crack down on individual pickets, the only ones permitted by law. However, just 150 meters away, dozens of communist militants gathered outside the European Union delegation to protest against Europe and NATO without being bothered by the officers.

Public investment in turning Moscow into a picture-postcard city every summer is exorbitant. Mayor Sergei Sobyanin plants flowers in every flowerbed and bridge, which will die with the arrival of cold weather, and sets up artificial urban jungles in the city center's streets. This opulence may seem disconcerting for the capital of a country at war, which sends hundreds of men to the front every day and whose regions are often attacked by Ukrainians. And it may seem obscene when compared to the Ukrainian capital, which is regularly subjected to bombings that cause fatalities and force citizens to take shelter underground for hours.

The carefree attitude of Muscovites is a success for Putin, who can continue raising the prices of basic services without citizens feeling uneasy. As Vladimir says: "I live in a wonderful country. I have a good job, family, summer, vacations. Everything is wonderful. What could I possibly worry about?"