Page 33 - RusRPTAug22

· Support for the ‘special operation’ is highest among those who describe themselves as active TV viewers (81 percent against 11). Among active internet users, support for the war drops to 45 percent (and opposition rises to 33 percent).
· It was not possible to identify trends among different wealth categories: among those who said their financial situation was ‘good’, support for the ‘special military operation’ runs at 75 percent; among those in a ‘poor’ financial situation, the figure is 61 percent.
· Another question read: “Some people believe that due to the economic and humanitarian sanctions imposed on Russia by the West, it is essential to unite around the president and support him even if you do not entirely agree with him. Others believe that even under sanctions there is no need to rally around the president and support him. What do you think?” This question has been posed twice: in late April and on June 21. This time, the figure that agreed with the need to support the president fell from 81 percent to 75. In the youngest age group, those figures were 67 and 43 percent, a drop of 24 percentage points. In the 25-34 age group, the number who saw no need to rally around the president rose from 19 to 26 percent.
Can we trust these numbers?
Since the outbreak of the war, analysts in Russia and the West have debated the extent to which we can trust sociological data from Russia given the state’s effective monopoly on polling and the current wartime conditions. This question is even more pertinent when most polls produce numbers favorable to the Kremlin. There is no clear answer: it’s obvious that a significant proportion of the answers are insincere and polling technology can be steered towards numbers that favor the authorities, but it is not clear to what extent this distorts the findings.
Sociologist Grigory Yudin urges us to remember that the presidential administration is the client for these VTsIOM polls: “The results of these surveys are regarded as a reflection of the will of the people, so VTsIOM will highlight those results that strengthen its client’s position and not show any that are disadvantageous to the customer”. At the same time, Russians themselves believe that these polls are conducted by the state and tailor their answers accordingly. “People are well-attuned to the atmosphere: direct questions about ‘support’ are seen as a requirement to show loyalty. VTsIOM is also aware of this, and therefore asks indirect questions, asking about which scenario seems more favorable to respondents right now. These questions are less pressured and give more problematic answers, so VTsIOM does not publish the results.”
One of the more striking conclusions we can draw from this poll is the generation gap. Young Russians are more minded to halt the
33 RUSSIA Country Report October 2020 www.intellinews.com