PUTIN POPULARITY MYTH: Should We Ignore Outlandish Putin Poll Numbers? Russians may not have a clear outlet for their actual opinion on Putin

One of the factors that often comes up with Russian politics is the belief that Russian President Vladimir Putin allegedly does enjoy a certain level of popularity among average Russians, perhaps even at cartoonish levels. That perceived factor gets mulled over irregardless of the extent to which his image and impact might also be manipulated and distorted by governmental media control, intimidation or various degrees of state repression.

Yet, aside from concerns and data analysis relating to surmised election fraud, how could one possibly substantiate such a thing, even from a numeric standpoint, if individual Russians did not even feel free to express dissent to persons representing themselves as pollsters?

Even beyond suspicions and problematic data surrounding would-be formal elections, common sense would lead one to question whether even private, sincere efforts at polling could gain accurate results.

Even if a pollster set out in good faith to conduct modern, scientific polling with thoughtful effort and attempted safeguards, one might have to wonder whether participants might suspect that the Kremlin and its security agencies, or crony supporters, could spy upon them, or retaliate against them, if the respondent is not supportive of the ruling powers.

The citizen being polled might question the identity of someone making a telephone call to them, or even the real identity of someone inviting them to participate in person.

Even if the citizen being polled was satisfied as to the good intentions and identity of the pollster, they might wonder about third-party surveillance, e.g., surveillance of the pollster's records, including hacking into data; surveillance of the phone call or other line of communication used for polling; surveillance of the pollster's premises or the citizen's own premises, including, for example remote detection of audio or video.

Such a citizen might question their own capacity to detect or discern such surveillance, or their knowledge of the various methods used to obtain evidence of disloyalty.

Against that background, claims that Putin has a supermajority of "support" must be regarded with skepticism, or subjected to some kind of mathematical adjustment.

For example, if only 23% supported Putin, for whatever psychological reasons, self-interest, or whatever the case may be, what percentage would state falsely that they supported to Putin, on a phone call. If that number is 70%, the inverse ratio would mean roughly dividing by three, just to take a random hypothecal figure to illustrate the concept.

Also curious is the phenomenon of different numeric levels relating to questions about approval versus trust or other factors. One interesting question would be whether different types of wording or questions might alleviate the terror with which a Russian citizen might regard the prospect of being found out as less than fully supportive or submissive to the regime.

Shifting levels of control and repression of media or individual communications, becoming more stringent across time, raise the question of whether and how Russian citizens living inside Russia might feel free to express their actual views or opinions at all.

Key Words: Russia, Russian Government, Russian Politics, Russian Polls, Putin, Kremlin

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