Amid war on Ukraine, 'over half of Russians expressing pessimism for the first time in 20 years'

Nadia Massih is pleased to welcome Benedict Vigers, Senior Global News Writer at Gallup. For much of the war in Ukraine, conventional wisdom suggested that Russians had largely rallied behind the state despite mounting international sanctions and military costs. Gallup's latest research challenges that picture. Drawing on more than two decades of continuous polling, Vigers argues that Russia is experiencing not merely a deterioration in economic sentiment, but a broader psychological turning point. After years in which public confidence remained unexpectedly resilient, the latest data indicate simultaneous declines in perceptions of the economy, trust in key state institutions, confidence in the military, faith in elections, and even perceptions of media freedom.