Russians Oppose Violent Overthrow of Dictators Abroad and at Home as Well, Shelin Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Feb. 20 – Recent polls about events in Venezuela and Iran and older ones about the situation in Belarus in 2020 indicate that Russians side with the incumbents and oppose violent change abroad and likely oppose it at home as well, according to independent Russian commentator Sergey Shelin.

            Given that they live “under a dictator themselves,” he says, Russians would seem to have every reason to see the removal of a dictatorship in Venezuela and a popular challenge to one in Iran are developments they would support (ru.themoscowtimes.com/2026/02/20/rossiyanin-serednyak-sochuvstvuet-diktatoram-a-ne-tem-kto-protiv-nih-a187733).

            Bur recent polls in the Russian Federation show something else: they show that Russians support the regimes being challenged and oppose moves against them regardless of whether they are taken by a foreign power as in the case of Venezuela or by the population as in Iran – and indeed, in the latter case, they blame outside agitators for the actions of the Iranian people.

            Surveys taken at the same of the popular protests against the Lukashenka dictatorship in Belarus in 2020, protests that Russians paid far more attention to than they have to the events in Venezuela and Iran, show the same pattern of support for those in power and opposition to any violent challenge.

            “Four years of Putin’s escapades,” Shelin continues, “have not weakened Russians propensity to protect those in power or increased their interest in those trying to overthrow a dictatorship. On the contrary, their state of mind has become ever more depressing,” with ever fewer willing to express interest in or solidarity with those opposing dictatorships.

            This pattern should not be attributed to the Russian government’s media campaigns in support of its allies either, Shelin says. It is deeper than that and reflects a willingness to support dictators “no matter how vile” and “a refusal to see anything through the eyes of their opponents and victims.”

            And those attitudes toward foreign dictators parallel those they have to their own dictator, Shelin argues. Russians “don’t particularly adore him, but he can do anything” as “the masses see no replacement for him. They don’t even ask the Russian elite for a coup d’etat as they have no alternative social ideas at all.”