More than 10 Times as Many Russians are Focusing on the Coronavirus than on Putin’s Latest Moves, New Poll Reports

Paul Goble

            Staunton, February 28 – Twenty-six percent of Russians say they are interested in news reports about the coronavirus, compared to only three percent who say they follow the constitutional amendments and two percent who say they are interested in the Kremlin leader’s latest moves, the Public Opinion Foundation says (media.fom.ru/fom-bd/d82020.pdf).

            Rosbalt commentator Sergey Shelin cites this finding to the point that Vladimir Putin’s ability to control the media environment is far less than many imagine and that, as a result, he and the Russian people are increasingly living in two “parallel” worlds that do not intersect (rosbalt.ru/blogs/2020/02/28/1830376.html).

            There can be no doubt that Putin views the constitutional amendments and the war in Syria as the major issues of the day, Shelin says; but the Russian people don’t. They don’t understand what all the fuss about the amendments is about, and they have never felt that they have been given an adequate justification for what Moscow is doing in Syria.

            And there is also no doubt that Putin and his entourage continue to assume that they can get the Russian people to accept the Kremlin’s reality even if they know, as Vladislav Surkov has now admitted, that it is an artificial one that may have little to do with the lives of ordinary people (actualcomment.ru/surkov-mne-interesno-deystvovat-protiv-realnosti-2002260855.html).

            Indeed, Surkov suggested that what has always interested him has been the ability of the regime to act “against reality” and then bring the population into line with the alternative that the Kremlin has created. That reinforces the power of those in the Kremlin and contributes to the stability the regime wants.

            But the Public Opinion Foundation findings and Shelin’s explication of them show that if the Kremlin was able to do that in the past, it isn’t nearly as successful now. Putin and his team live in one reality; Russians live in another. And the Russians increasingly have no desire to join him in his “alternative” one.