Russian state-run poll claims trust in Putin has gone UP since invasion of Ukraine

Volodymyr Zelenskyy ‘a real leader’ says Wootton

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The number of Russians who trust their president has jumped from 60 percent to 71 percent in less than two weeks, according to the poll carried out by state-owned Public Opinion Foundation (FOM). In total, 18 percent of those who took part said they do not trust Putin – a drop from 29 percent recorded on February 20 – while 11 percent found it difficult to answer the question, according to the poll.

FOM’s poll suggests the Russian president is enjoying renewed support amid the invasion of Ukraine despite sanctions causing a run on banks and mass protests across the country.

And jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has called on Russians to stage daily protests against Moscow’s military campaign.

His spokesperson, Kira Yarmysh, tweeted on Wednesday: “Alexei Navalny has called for people to go out and protest against the war every day at 19:00 and on weekends at 14:00. The main squares of your towns, wherever you are.”

The OVD-Info group, which monitors protests and arrests in Russia, said 6,006 people have so far been arrested for anti-war demonstrations since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 27.

Putin claimed it was a special operation to demilitarise and “denazify” the country though Ukraine and the West have dismissed the justification as baseless propaganda.

A separate poll conducted by the Russian Levada Centre found a third of Russians do not support Putin’s attacks, a figure which increases to about 50 per cent in larger cities.

The Russian state exerts great influence over the country’s media output with Putin consolidating his grip over the information people are fed since his rise to power.

MailOnline reports that in a recent interview with TV Rain, Lyudmila Narusova hit out at the Moscow media crackdown which has blocked key independent news outlets.

She also accused military leaders of lying about the scale of Russia’s losses in Ukraine.

Ms Narusova was married to Anatoly Sobchak, a former St Petersburg mayor who made Putin his deputy when he left the KGB.

She told TV Rain: “Why are we supposed to trust only state channels which – we all know – shamelessly lie?”

Russian channels have been ordered not to refer to the invasion of Ukraine as such, but to describe it as a special operation.

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The Kremlin has refused to reveal any details about Russian losses in the fighting, although Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday that 6,000 had died.

Russian news agencies TASS and RIA Novosti are wholly state-owned while all three of the country’s largest television news channels, Channel One, Russia One and NTV, are either wholly or partially owned by the state.

This is the same for RT and Sputnik which are Russia’s main method of distributing news in Europe. They have been blocked by the EU, Facebook and YouTube.

Culture secretary Nadine Dorries said on Tuesday that RT will no longer be available on Sky as the French satellite which broadcasts it in both the EU and UK will be switched off.

She tweeted: “Putin’s polluting propaganda machine will now have severely restricted access into British homes via our TV screens.”

Russian radio station Ekho Moskvy was taken off air on Tuesday, its editor Alexei Venediktov said, in a blow to one of the few remaining liberal media the Kremlin has tolerated until now.

It comes as Ukraine accused Russia on Tuesday of carrying out a “barbaric” rocket attack on a Kyiv TV tower that killed five civilians near Babyn Yar, a memorial site to one of the biggest single massacres of Jews during the Nazi Holocaust.

Meanwhile, Russia said on Tuesday it was placing temporary restrictions on foreigners seeking to exit Russia assets as it tried to stem an exodus of investors driven by crippling Western sanctions.

Russian assets were in freefall on Tuesday with London-listed ishares MSCI Russia ETF plunging 33 percent and Russia’s biggest lender, Sberbank, falling to 21 cents on the dollar from just under $9 (£6.75) before the invasion.

The rouble plummeted as much as 30 percent on Monday. It weakened past 100 against the dollar in Moscow trade and hit 117 in other markets on Tuesday, threatening the living standards of ordinary Russians.

Share trading on the Moscow Exchange was suspended for a second day after sharp sell-offs hammered the market.

Fears of a run on Russia’s banks saw queues emerge at cash machines with Russia’s Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina telling staff the economy had come up against an extreme situation.

In comparison with Putin’s poll numbers, approval for US President Joe Biden’s response to the Russian invasion has risen over the past week with 43 percent saying they approve in a Reuters/Ipsos poll completed on Tuesday. This is up from 34 percent.

However, some 47 percent of US citizens surveyed said they disapproved of Mr Biden’s response to the crisis.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has started to regain favour with some members of the British public, according to his approval rating.

According to YouGov, Mr Johnson’s approval rating was at 25 percent as of February 10, an increase of three percentage points on his previous score published on January 13.

A separate YouGov poll of 1,687 adults surveyed on February 22-23 found 29 percent believed he was handling the crisis in Ukraine well compared to 34 percent who said he was dealing with it badly. In total, 37 percent said they did not know.

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