The writer is a foreign correspondent for NYT
Yevgeny Prigozhin’s failed rebellion sharply dented his domestic support, but nearly 30 per cent of Russians continue to view the Wagner mercenary leader positively, according to opinion polls whose results were released on Monday.
Results from two surveys conducted in June by Russian Field, a nonpartisan Moscow-based research company, found that Prigozhin’s decision to march his Wagner mercenaries on Moscow on June 24 reversed a steady rise in opinion polls that had made him one of Russia’s most popular wartime leaders.
Prigozhin’s short lived-rebellion, which he called off within hours, had posed the most dramatic challenge to President Vladimir Putin’s leadership in his two decades in power.
Prigozhin’s residual support is particularly striking in light of a concerted effort by the Russian government to discredit him; the lack of public support for the mutiny from Russian political and military leaders; and the deaths of several Russian military pilots who confronted Wagner’s rebels. The polls also took place amid an increasingly draconian crackdown on free speech, which has seen Russians jailed for expressing anti-government views.
Experts are divided over the accuracy of polling in Russia, where criticising the war in Ukraine is illegal.
Some claim that repression prevents respondents from expressing their real views. Polling firms defend their work by saying that well designed surveys can still produce reliable results.
Between 70 per cent and 80 per cent of people reached by telephone by Russian Fields refused to participate, highlighting the difficulties of capturing public opinion in the country.
Russian Field surveyed two separate groups of about 1,600 people across Russia by phone, one shortly before and the other shortly after Wagner’s mutiny. The polls had a margin of error of 2.5 per cent.
Overall, Prigozhin’s support fell by 26 percentage points following the mutiny, according to the poll. Twenty-nine per cent of those surveyed said they still viewed Prigozhin in a positive light, while nearly 40 per cent said they viewed the mercenary leader negatively. One-third of respondents said they were not familiar with his activities or declined to answer.
The findings appeared to align with an analysis conducted in June by FilterLabs.AI, a public opinion firm that monitors social media and Internet forums to track popular sentiment in Russia.
That analysis found a sharp reduction in Prigozhin’s support after the rebellion.
As Prigozhin lodged increasingly caustic attacks against the Russian ruling class, his support steadily rose until he staged his high-stakes gambit against the government, the polls by Russian Field found. The share of Russians who supported him rose by 14 percentage points, to 55 per cent, from February to early June, according to the research company, despite a lack of media coverage from state-dominated television networks, which continue to be an influential source of news for Russians.
“Prigozhin’s rating was based on two pillars: the support of Vladimir Putin and honest rhetoric. He called things by their name and talked about problems that others were afraid to speak of,” Artemiy Vvedenskiy, the founder of Russian Field, said in written responses to questions.
The polls show that state propaganda has been partly successful in changing these perceptions.
Following the rebellion, Prigozhin’s support fell most sharply among Russians older than 60 and those who primarily obtain information from television, according to the polls.
By contrast, Russians between 18 and 44 years old were nearly evenly split among supporters and opponents of Prigozhin, the polls found.
The mercenary leader and tycoon also maintained strong support among Russians who obtain their information primarily from the popular messaging app Telegram and Internet news sites, suggesting that his online media network has considerable reach.
— The New York Times
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