In the ten years to 2022, the share doing so daily grew from 40 to 74 percent. In the last four years before the Ukraine invasion, the Kremlin was already dismantling Russia’s spin dictatorship in favor of fear. As Putin started tightening screws from 2012, they were pushed to the sidelines, replaced by even more cynical technicians such as Sergei Kirienko. Yet, over time, Putin lost

Although the war has since served as justification for more domestic repression, it was not essential for this. The Russian public was ready to rally behind “victories,” but support for an actual war seemed thin in 2021. He heard daily from supporters of a tougher spinnaus line against political opposition, and much more rarely from those who had doubts — or, at least, felt brave enough