Paul Goble
Staunton, Mar. 25 – Data from polling by the Public Opinion Foundation and the Levada Center show that Putin’s war in Ukraine has “inflicted the latest powerful hit on the influence of television” in Russia after the Kremlin leader had used it to build his authoritarian system, the Re-Russia portal says.
According to data from both polling organizations (fom.ru/SMI-i-internet/15312 and levada.ru/2025/09/11/istochniki-informatsii-v-avguste-2025-polzovanie-i-doverie/), the analytic portal says, “the share of those who consider TV their primary source of information declined noticeably during 2024-2025” (re-russia.net/review/810/).
Before Putin launched his expanded war in Ukraine in 2022, the portal says, “approximately 60 percent of Russian respondents cited television as their primary source of news; but by 2024-2025, this figure had dropped to roughly 55 percent and now, it stands at 47 percent.”
“Conversely, the proportion of those who say they never watch television and/or do not own a TV set rose from 18 percent” at the start of the war “to 33 percent by March 2026,” with the changes even more dramatic among the young: “only 16 percent of them view TV as their most important source of information and an even smaller percentage who trust it.”
Re-Russia concludes: “TV appears to have irretrievably lost its status as one of the primary instruments of authoritarian control; and despite having played a pivotal role in justifying the war and fostering patriotic mobilization as recently as 2022-2023, it lost its propaganda potency during 2024-2025 largely because of the protracted and unsuccessful war.”
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