Something is shifting in Moscow. Vladimir Putin’s iron grip on authority remains resolute, but increasingly, Russians are willing to question it. The nation's economy is faltering, edging closer to disaster, while progress in the war against Ukraine—now in its fifth year—has ground to a halt.
Approval Rating Plummets
This month, Putin’s approval rating plummeted to 65.6 per cent, its lowest level since the start of his military campaign, a drop of 12.2 percentage points since the start of the year.
Voices of Dissent
Pro-Kremlin influencer Victoria Bonya, who promotes fitness routines and a vegan beauty brand to her 13 million Instagram followers, isn’t your typical anti-authoritarian activist. But in a bold 18-minute video that accrued 30 million views and more than 1.3 million likes in five days, the former reality television star made a stark intervention that rattled Russia’s top brass. She told the president: “The people are afraid of you, artists are afraid, governors are afraid,” before listing issues from flooding in Dagestan and oil pollution along the Black Sea coast to the squeeze on small businesses. Bonya, who lives near Monaco, warned: “You know what the risk is? That people will stop being afraid, and they’re being squeezed into a coiled spring, and that one day that coiled spring will shoot out.”
Ekaterina Gordon, a singer and television presenter living in Russia, warned Putin of a revolt among women whose businesses are closing, who cannot keep up with soaring mortgage rates, and whose children are being denied access to higher education by budget slashes. “This will be the biggest divorce with the authorities,” she announced.
Russia could even face a reiteration of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution unless it takes urgent steps to address rising discontent, according to Gennady Zyuganov, leader of the country’s Communist Party. He told parliament: “We’ve told you ten times—the economy is bound to collapse. The first quarter was a complete disaster. If you don’t urgently take financial, economic, and other measures, then in the autumn we’ll face what happened in 1917.”
Inner Circle Discontent
It’s not just the public Putin should worry about; his inner circle also “secretly hate him,” according to previously pro-Kremlin lawyer Ilya Remeslo. He brazenly declared in an interview: “I am the person who knows how to fight Vladimir Putin, who knows the system's weaknesses, how to interact with it, and how to lure people out of it.” Once a staunch backer of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Remeslo said he’d like to be the new leader of Russia after a revolution and dared the despot to arrest him. He appealed to those still in the system, saying: “My plan is to create a platform and attract those who are afraid to speak out against Vladimir Putin. I want to become a representative of this mass of people, which amounts to tens of millions.” Remeslo first came out against Putin in March, branding him a war criminal, liar, and thief. He was later admitted to a psychiatric clinic in what appeared to be an act of Soviet-style repression but was discharged and renewed his attacks.
Respected Colonel Valery Pigasov, a retired officer, recently accused Putin of running a “lawless” army after it was revealed 17 elite troops were ordered to walk through a minefield. He expressed outrage that Aerospace Forces fighters had been forced “to clear minefields with their own feet,” resulting in a dozen injuries and five deaths.
Military Stumbles
Even as Putin attempts to put on a brave face, his military is stumbling on the frontline. After over four years of fighting, the Russian army has suffered perhaps the worst losses any major power has seen since World War II. Up to one in 25 Russian men between 18 and 49 have been killed or seriously wounded, with total fatalities potentially exceeding 430,000. Since launching a spring-summer offensive on March 17, Moscow’s rate of advance has slowed in northeastern, eastern, and southern Ukraine, and it has lost around 10 square kilometres across the theatre. Along the frontline, Putin’s forces have been unable to generate enough combat strength to break through without falling victim to Ukrainian drones.
Former British Army colonel Philip Ingram told the Daily Mail: “For the past 18 months, Russia was advancing at huge cost. However, that seems to have changed. The Ukrainians have not just held them back but are now probing in different areas and making advances, putting the Russians under pressure. The Russian spring offensives have not just been halted but have been turned around. From a tactical perspective, the Ukrainians are now calling the shots.”
Kyiv has also been pummelling oil terminals that serve as the gateway for Russian energy exports, crippling its war economy and forcing Moscow to slash oil production in April by up to 400,000 barrels per day. Ingram notes: “Ukraine is attacking Russia's oil and gas infrastructure, its ability to pay for the war, its defence industrial base, logistic nodes, and command and control nodes. Ukraine has the initiative, and Russia is on the back foot.”
For Charles Hecker, an Associate Fellow at RUSI and author of “Zero Sum: The Arc of International Business in Russia,” the grinding war of attrition is swinging in Volodymyr Zelensky’s favour. He says: “The fact that Russia still hasn't won over a country it outnumbers in almost everything is the greatest indicator. Ukraine is learning to overcome manpower shortages through technology. At the moment, the war of attrition appears to be swinging slightly to Ukraine's advantage.”
Economic Strain
While the US-Israel conflict with Iran has provided an economic windfall for Russia through surging oil prices and loosening sanctions, this is a brief boost amid a larger decline. Hecker explains: “Moscow has been benefiting from the spike in energy prices and sanctions relief, but not as much as it could because of damage to ports and refinery infrastructure.” As a marker of dire straits, Putin has asked oligarchs to make voluntary contributions to the budget for the first time. According to the Economic Development Ministry, GDP in January and February was 1.8 per cent lower than last year, as Western sanctions and high interest rates choke investment. Nonpayments of commercial bills reached a record high of $109 billion in January. The Russian Finance Ministry reported that the national budget deficit exceeded $60 billion in the first three months of 2026, surpassing the projected deficit for the entire year.
Amid rising taxes, an inflation rate of 5.9 per cent, and a central bank interest rate of 14.5 per cent—nearly three times the pre-war level—the cost of living is pinching ordinary Russians. A recent survey by the Levada research centre found that 67 per cent of those polled said Russia should move toward peace talks, while public confidence that things are moving in the right direction has fallen by 20 percentage points in six weeks to 41 per cent, according to state-controlled VCIOM.
Internet Restrictions Fuel Anger
Part of the current dissatisfaction is rooted in the government’s heavy-handed internet restrictions, including an attempt to block Telegram, the country’s most popular messaging app used by over 100 million Russians monthly. Officials claim the digital policies are counter-terrorist measures, but few believe them. Bonya said in her address: “Internet restrictions make Russia impossible to be in.” Even loyal members of Putin’s United Russia party have voiced outrage. Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of the Belgorod region, said he was “worried” that Telegram restrictions could endanger lives dependent on the app for air raid warnings. The newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta editorialised: “The internet is essentially the only issue where every party could boost their approval rating right now.”
Hecker notes: “Cutting off Moscow from the mobile internet was probably a step too far and triggered this great outpouring of discontent. Moscow has been an incredibly digital city. The decision to disconnect the mobile internet has triggered this most recent wave of concern from residents and businesses that depend heavily on mobile internet services.”
The recent limits to digital freedom add an extra layer of repression to the lives of all Russians, whose freedoms and quality of life are being gradually squeezed. Hecker adds: “Inflation remains high. The economy is underperforming. Russians can't travel freely without extra expense and logistical difficulty because American and European airspace is blocked. For middle-class and working-class Russians, life has become much more difficult. Then comes the mobile internet blockage—another layer on top of everything.”
Jonathan Hackett, a former US Marine interrogator and counterintelligence agent, warns: “Repression without an escape valve does nothing to eliminate the causal factors feeding discontent. Russians affected by repressive measures will not simply put their grievances aside. They will seek other ways to express dissatisfaction. During the Cold War, this was described as exchanging ballots for bullets. Repression still has the paradoxical effect of conjuring up methods of expression far more detrimental to the status quo power than if expression was allowed even in small doses.”
Kremlin Reaction
Following Bonya’s rant, members of Putin’s inner circle were clearly rattled. Vladimir Solovyov, one of the despot’s more fanatical television propagandists, called her “a worn-out slut,” while Vitaly Milonov, a Duma deputy, called her a “Dubai escort who mumbles incoherently.” Dismiss her they might, her words have spread throughout the country, showing others that criticism is an option.
But while anti-government sentiment appears to be spreading, Ingram warns against overinflating the power of dissent. “Putin is more vulnerable than he has been at any time in the last 12 months, but his position remains fairly secure. There's still quite a lot that would have to happen to properly threaten where he is.” He suggests some dissenters may be acting deliberately on behalf of the Kremlin to “phish” for other dissenters. “They're using the dissent as bait. We just have to watch the individuals and see whether they get arrested or silenced. Putin tends not to hang around and leave genuine dissenters living for too long.”
According to Hecker, the Kremlin leader has sensed the rising restlessness and responded in a “Putin-esque and Soviet playbook kind of way,” by calling on ministers publicly to reconsider the internet ban. He recently instructed law enforcement bodies to show “ingenuity and professionalism” and to “accommodate the vital interests of citizens,” shifting blame away from himself. This benevolent posture may be a manipulative way to reassert authority. “In the Soviet period and during Putin's presidency, there's a tradition of using moments like this as pressure valves, letting a little bit of the pressure escape. That takes some of the heat out of the moment.”
While individual dissenters may be getting more confident, there’s no singular figure willing to rise and unite society in revolt. Notably, Bonya filmed her video near Monaco—a safe distance from Putin’s lethal security apparatus—and couched her criticism using the familiar Russian trope that the president just hadn’t been properly briefed. Hecker recalls: “We've seen what happens to people who openly oppose President Putin in a serious way. Think about Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was literally blown out of the sky, or Alexei Navalny, who died a miserable death in the Russian prison system.” Moreover, Russian civil society has been completely dismantled, meaning there’s no viable way for individuals to congregate into a national protest movement.
Despite the rising criticism, Hecker is doubtful that this moment signifies Putin’s downfall. “I have yet to see the transmission belts between popular discontent and political change. I can't yet see how you get from A to B on this.” And when it comes to discontent within the president’s inner circle, rebellion is even harder because top officials don’t know who might be an ally or a spy. Ingram concludes: “If anyone in a powerful position starts to create noises suggesting they are considering rebelling, they don't know whether the individuals they're talking to are Putin supporters. And if they are, the instigator tends to have an accident—falling out of a 9th floor window, down the stairs, or off the back of a speedboat.”
