Surveys: half of Russian citizens disapprove of their government’s actions, and only a third trust Putin

In a new survey of Russian citizens conducted by the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM), 54 percent of respondents indicated that the Russian government’s actions in the past month left them feeling dissatisfied or resentful. The survey was conducted on January 12 and 13 and included 1500 respondents from 104 municipalities and 53 Russian regions.

40 percent of those surveyed said they did not experience these feelings. That number has decreased by 5 percent over the past month, while the number of dissatisfied respondents has increased by 6 percent.

70 percent of respondents said they had heard people around them criticize Russian authorities within the past month. According to FOM, this is the highest that number has been since 2013.

Another survey conducted January 9-13 by the state-owned All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM) indicated that 62.1 percent of its respondents approved of President Vladimir Putin’s work while the approval ratings of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and the Russian government overall remained lower at 35 percent and 39.5 percent respectively.

Update: The VTsIOM survey also indicated that only 33.4 percent of respondents said they trust Vladimir Putin. VTsIOM sources told TV Rain that the figure is an all-time low. The previous minimum, 45 percent, came in 2005 amid an unpopular decision to replace certain government benefits with monetary compensation. Putin’s trust rating in this latest survey has dropped by half since 2015.