By Murad Rakhimov | 2026-05-01

For years, the Kremlin maintained a careful balance: wage war abroad while keeping daily life at home tolerable enough to sustain the fiction of normalcy. That balance is cracking.

In one week this spring, President Vladimir Putin's trust rating dropped five percentage points, the sharpest fall since 2019, as the government throttled Telegram and threw up digital barriers across 72 of Russia's regions. Since January, his approval has fallen 9% -- the steepest decline since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The trigger wasn't battlefield losses or economic collapse. It was losing access to messaging apps.

The numbers

A March 27–29 survey by the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM) put Putin's trust rating at 71%, down from 76% the week before. The share of Russians saying they do not trust him climbed from 13 to 17%. Approval of Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin and the government fell by roughly two percentage points. The ruling United Russia party dropped three points to 38%.

The Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM) confirmed the trend: in March, approval of Putin's performance fell 1.9% to 70.1%, and trust in him dropped 1.7% to 75%.

By early April, VTsIOM recorded approval falling further to 67.8%, the lowest since the start of the full-scale war, while trust expressed in response to an open-ended question dropped to 29.5%. The share of respondents who reject his actions has risen from 14.8 to 18.3% since January.

Protest sentiment is also rising. The share of Russians who believe mass demonstrations would draw large crowds grew from 15 to 17%. The New People party, which openly opposes the Telegram block, has risen unexpectedly to second place in opinion polls.

What sparked the anger

Russia's internet regulator Roskomnadzor began blocking voice and video calls on Telegram in August 2025, officially confirmed broader throttling of the service in February 2026, and by the first ten days of April had reduced Telegram's availability to users without VPNs to just five percent.

Widespread internet shutdowns now hit 62 regions regularly, and whitelisted-only internet access has been introduced in 72 territorial entities. Last year Russia led the world in internet blackouts, affecting an estimated 146 million people. Experts predict a full transition to an isolated sovereign internet by 2028.

Despite signals from senior officials warning of political and economic risks, the crackdown has not eased. The blocking is driven primarily by the Federal Security Service (FSB), which received what analysts describe as a green light from Putin to "bring order to the internet" following reports that the perpetrators of the 2024 Crocus City concert hall attack had used Telegram.

Telegram's nearly 94 million Russian users, a drop of only 1.5 percent since the crackdowns intensified, have increasingly turned to foreign alternatives. Users of Turkey's BiP, South Korea's KakaoTalk, and China's WeChat combined surged 60% in March 2026, according to mobile operator MTS. The Kremlin-backed messaging app Max, intended as a replacement, has failed to gain traction: while more than 107 million accounts have been registered, users avoid it because of its surveillance features.

Authorities have also moved to restrict VPN use. The Ministry of Digital Development has pushed mobile operators to cap free VPN traffic at 15 gigabytes per month and blocked the ability to top up Apple IDs through mobile accounts, making it harder to pay for circumvention tools.

Forbes Russia reported the VPN limits were proposed by Putin personally and enshrined in a confidential directive. In mid-April, more than 20 Russian websites and e-commerce platforms, including the government services portal Gosuslugi, Ozon, Wildberries, Yandex and Sberbank, began blocking access for users relying on VPNs.

The restrictions sparked scattered protests. In fall 2025, people in Voronezh, Omsk, Novosibirsk and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky rallied against blocked calls on Telegram and WhatsApp. On April 4, around 200 people gathered outside the Presidential Executive Office in Moscow to deliver petitions against the blocks.

The flashpoint came April 14, when lifestyle blogger Victoria Bonya posted an 18-minute video on Instagram criticizing the blocks, the killing of animals protected under Russia's Red Book, the seizure of livestock in Novosibirsk Region, flooding mismanagement in Dagestan and oil pollution in Anapa. The video drew more than 500,000 likes in its first 13 hours and 26 million views across platforms.

Kremlin propagandist Vladimir Solovyov attacked Bonya, calling her a "worn-out slut," as did State Duma deputy Vitaly Milonov, who called her a "poorly educated blogger." Bonya responded by threatening a joint lawsuit against both men and blogger Artemy Lebedev. Her support swelled further. Social media filled with images of her face stylized like the iconic Che Guevara portrait, Instagram logo replacing the five-pointed star. Even actor Ivan Okhlobystin, a Putin proxy in the 2024 elections and outspoken war supporter, called the "digital restrictions" a "huge mistake" on April 14.

The Kremlin's response underscored its discomfort. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov acknowledged the video had "attracted attention" and that the issues raised were receiving significant work. Bonya posted a tearful follow-up thanking Peskov -- then accepted an invitation to appear on Solovyov's own broadcast.

Will the Kremlin blink?

Bloomberg reported that the approval rating slide, and its implications for September's State Duma elections, has prompted senior officials to warn of the political and economic risks of the crackdown. But the blocking has not reversed. Peskov said Russians "understand the appropriateness of and need for" internet blocking and that restrictions would be lifted once "the need for them disappears."

Political analyst Anvar Nazirov said the numbers reflect personal frustration, not political awakening.

"The restrictions on accessing Telegram in Russia sparked a noticeable public reaction. But it's important to understand that this dissatisfaction is personal, not political," he told Kontur.

People are reacting to disruptions in daily life, not to the underlying reasons for the crackdown, even as the causal chain runs directly from the 2014 annexation of Crimea through the full-scale invasion of Ukraine to the tightening of domestic control.

"Even a drop in approval ratings of a few percentage points isn't leading to systemic changes," Nazirov said. "When support is 50 to 60 percent, you can't really talk about a mass protest movement in Russia."

Alisher Ilkhamov, director of London-based Central Asia Due Diligence, said war fatigue and internet controls are feeding each other.

"It's a combination of accumulating war fatigue and actions that restrict internet access," he told Kontur. Growing isolation from Europe has intensified Russians' need for communication and social media. The internet crackdown was the last straw.

Ilkhamov also questioned whether the polling reflects reality. When free speech is restricted and criticism carries risk, survey respondents feel social pressure to give the expected answer. Even so, the numbers are moving in a direction the Kremlin cannot ignore, and the FSB, not public opinion, appears to be driving the car.