‘People won’t like what’s happening at home’

With prices and unemployment on the rise, Meduza’s sources say Kremlin officials fear Russians are in for a rude awakening this fall

The Putin administration is bracing itself for an anticipated rise in popular discontent in Russia, as prices continue to go up and factories shut down, informed sources told Meduza. Kremlin officials and the political strategists on their payroll believe that Vladimir Putin’s supporters are losing interest in the war against Ukraine — which means they’re beginning to pay attention to other issues. And with the start of the school year fast approaching, the pressures of getting the kids ready for class could be the final straw.

The come down from the summer holidays

According to two sources close to the Putin administration, officials in the Kremlin’s domestic policy bloc are worried about a potential rise in social discontent in the near future. However, these sources also noted that these discussions are not based on sociological studies. “All of the sociology is now focused on the elections, and the budgets for it are rather limited,” one person said, referring to the regional and gubernatorial elections Russia has scheduled for September 11.

Both of Meduza’s sources said that autumn is traditionally associated with an uptick in popular discontent. According to them, social anxieties receded during the summer as people go off on holiday or to their dachas. As autumn rolls around, Russians begin worrying about difficulties related to work and take notice of rising prices — the sense of optimism associated with the summer holidays disappears. “Summer is basically a time for a kind of pause: it’s warm, it’s bright, working days go by in the background. In the fall, everyone understands that winter is coming, expect nothing good,” one source quipped.

Getting ready for the start of the school year on September 1 is another potential trigger for social discontent. According to one of Meduza’s sources close to the Putin administration, people will inevitably compare how much they spent on back-to-school in 2022 — amid Russia’s full-blown war against Ukraine — to their spending in previous years. And the scale of the rise in prices will become all too clear.

Both sources also noted that the topic of the “special military operation” (Kremlin parlance for the war) is becoming a nuisance for Russians (“they’re getting tired of it”). These sources added that earlier, interest in the “operation” dampened social discontent. “On the plus side we don’t have shelling [here] — even if the prices have gone up, the difficulties are not for long.”

“In the fall people will return home both from vacations and from virtual participation in the ‘special [military] operation.’ They won’t like what’s happening at home,” one source said.

Claims about some pro-Kremlin Russians losing interest in the war against Ukraine are indirectly evidenced by the results of a recent survey conducted by the privately held research company Romir. The survey showed that since February, the average daily TV-viewing reach of the Russian state-controlled channels Perviy Kanal and Rossiya-1 have dropped by eight percent. Most of the airtime on Russian television is taken up by political talk shows, where presenters and guests discuss Ukraine and “hostile Western countries.”

Getting ready to throw money around

The mass exodus of Western companies from Russia in response to the February invasion has led to another problem that worries Kremlin officials — manufacturers in the regions are shutting down. As a result, issues with unemployment are expected in the Kaluga region (where large foreign automakers have their factories), the Leningrad region (where there are many large enterprises that have Western owners or are dependent on supplies from the West), and other industrial areas.

The way the Putin administration’s domestic policy bloc sees it, there’s only one way to stave off rising discontent: handing out cash. Meduza’s sources recalled that during the coronavirus pandemic, the Russian government dealt with the ensuing economic fallout by offering financial support to the population on multiple occasions. As rule, these payments were made available to families with children and were distributed ahead of elections. “In the fall, they will try to shower the dissatisfied with money. It might be relatively small amounts, but people will be glad to receive them,” one of Meduza’s sources assured.

In the spring, Meduza reported that the Kremlin’s political bloc was trying to develop an ideological justification for why Putin embarked upon a full-blown war against Ukraine and why Russians should put up with economic hardships due to Western sanctions. However, these ideas were developed with the expectation of ending the war through peace talks.

Now, Putin is committed to a “long war,” three sources close to the presidential administration told Meduza. And the Kremlin is no longer trying to give this strategy an ideological framework. The authorities believe they’ll be able to weather the next wave of popular discontent by “quelling [it] with money.”

Translation by Eilish Hart