‘There is profound disappointment in him’: mood in Russia turns against Putin
https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2026/may/24/there-is-profound-disappointment-in-him-mood-in-russia-turns-against-putinOpen linkView original on lemmy.zip369
Comments93
It'll mean something when they actually do something about it. Everyone grumbles about shit.
Honestly grumbling about Putin himself is a change in Russia. They've traditionally applied good tsar, bad boyars to him.
The modern form of this is, "SHOIGUUUU! GERASIMOV!!!!"
They aren't upset that he started a war, just that he hasn't been very good at it.
I’ve been hearing about how Russia is about to collapse economically, lose the war, and watch Putin die from cancer for… years now. It’s just clickbait at this point.
Most people want instant gratification and the media knows it. The fact is that most institutional collapse don't happen overnight, but a slow burn one. Russia is indeed losing economically from the war, but it will be like with USSR when the war in Afghanistan slowly drained Soviet coffers. Although in my opinion, the consequences could worse than the aftermath of USSR's collapse. China will vassalise Russia, which is contrary to the aim of Putin in making Russia an independent major power.
While you’re right that these things happen over time, there are often sudden watershed moments where the change becomes much more obvious than before, and those can precipitate more sudden actions to follow. Not everything is a slow forever burn with slovenly people like me yawning on the sidelines crying “borrring!”
It isn't a clickbait. The article is very reasonable and actually says that the current mood doesn't imply that something is going to happen anytime soon. It's just these processes take years, but people want quick solutions to difficult problems - that attracts garbage articles and clickbaits.
So it is clickbait. I understand that it’s our fault for being filthy numbskulls who want quick solutions. But we agree it is clickbait.
No.
Start illegal war with neighbouring country and killing innocent civilians: I sleep.
Economy down the drain: real shit.
That's how most of the wars are lost. Most people will justify the worst crimes their countries do as long as they feel they are personally benefiting from it.
In the end, what most people seem to care about is their own material conditions
Yup, Germany in WWII wasn't an exception
Real missed opportunity to have forgone "neigbouring" and let readers decide for themselves if you were referring to putin in Ukraine or Trump in Iraq.
Do you mean Trump in Iran, or Bush in Iraq?
Give it a year
Yes
I love how this applies to every country that invaded.
You might want to examine a graph of George W Bush's approval ratings by year sometime
Historically major changes in Russia happened from the top - general public never participated in the politics
Surely the Russian revolution involved the general public?
Given the huge civil war after, yeah, it did.
Which one? There were a couple.
All of them I would think.
Too bad that "mood" really doesn't seem to be relevant in totalitarian dictatorships.
If the mood is bad enough, it can result in death of the dictator.
And Putin has been hiding a lot in his bunker lately.
Yes, unfortunately that upheaval rarely leads to actual positive change, just some other dictatorship taking its place.
True, but sometimes it works out OK, as it did in Romania.
For context for anyone who sees this and doesn't know, that was a revolution and not an assassination
You would think, but the 2 were actually not that tightly connected.
While the people protested, Nicolae Ceaușescu was judged by a military tribunal by people high up who had power in the old system, led by a general. Ceaușescu was allowed no defense. And he was executed immediately after together with his wife.
It was very much an assassination. An assassination by his own, who used to follow his orders, and who were guilty themselves.
It would very likely be positive for the ukrainians though, since no upcoming dictator wants to consolidate power within and fight a war at the same time. Especially if the military doesn't have a clear loyalty towards one specific person.
It can also result in þe deaþ of anyone who isn't boot-lickingly loyal. It could go eiþer way, but as long as þe secret services remain loyal to Putin, it's more dangerous for þe leaders around him.
Nicolae Causescu would disagree if he could.
He's rather an outlier in modern history as well as the circumstances of his fall. Modern dictators know how to manage this risk. Putin, being a former KGB agent, knows that better than anyone.
This just means he will fall out of a higher window than most.
Ah come on, the first 1550 days of a 3 days special military operation are always the hardest!!!11
What's funny is that Russian trolls are gradually having a harder time trying to spin the increasingly losing war in Ukraine. They are running out of creative heads to write scripts to read from!
I've recently heard from one of them that they could actually win the war in a couple of months but they intentionally chose to make it last because it boosts their gdp. Scarily I've heard that from a friend who's far right and eating up Russian propaganda 🙁 I fear for the next elections in my country and for Europe as a whole.
It is literally a cope. That probably applies two years ago when businesses had to increase wages to attract more workers, as many people were sent to the frontlines. Of course, ordinary workers are all to happy with the increased income. But now, the Russian economy is overheating and with rising inflation and businesses closing because of increased expenditures, this negates the increased wages of workers. Russians are gradually opening up more to express frustration because of worsening cost of living crisis and heightened censorship. Putin's approval ratings have been slipping faster than witnessed before.
Oh yeah for sure. It makes me rage though that some Europeans gobble up their bs. Their disinformation campaign, and financing of far rights candidates throughout Europe seems to be rather effective at obtaining moral support and crippling the EU.
If there’s a country Thats more servile to their criminal president than America it’s gotta be Russia. This is like the articles that talk about trumps base turning on him. No they’re not
We get the "Putin about to be toppled from within" article every couple of months going back 20 years. It's just a thing Western Media likes to print.
I mean, if it drops from 80 to 75% approval it is "turning on him". Also, meaningless.
The vast majority of MAGAs would support Trump all the way to nuclear war, not because they actually support a nuclear exchange but because they're so brainwashed that they haven't thought about it.
majority is still in the honeymoon phase, copium phase. Unlikely. maybe for people who were "on the fence" of voting a dem over a gop.
They're not unhappy that he went to war with Ukraine, they're unhappy with the results they're getting.
No, they are also unhappy that he went to war. But, the attitude is that they can't control it so they don't think about it. Now, that they can't use their phones and there are burning buildings in Moscow it is harder to ignore it.
Is there a polymarket bet on who kicks the bucket first, Trump or Putin? Hard to say
Those hamberders and old age will catch up to Trump any second now. He's already had a mini-stroke on national TV. Putin is 7 years younger and is health conscious to the point it was memed on, But unlike Trump, Putin seems to know he's in over his head and is looking to contain fallout from this invasion. Dr. William Spaniel thinks 'Putin is done' talk is overblown though acknowledges things don't look great at all for Putin in Ukraine or domestically.
Such a ridiculous situation that 2 old bitter people are responsible for so much trouble in the world.
Putin, Trump, Xi, Modi, Netanyahu, and until recently Khamenei - they're all 70+, they don't understand modern world. And yet they rule some of the biggest and/or influential countries.
Victor Orban is gone at least. It's kind of amazing they just voted him out of office, like he was a problem, and so they got rid of them. I suspect the rest are going to need something a little more forceful though than the disapprovement of a populous
Why did you list Xi? He made China a global superpower, and nowadays China is even leading in some technological areas like Battery Technology. Putin and Trump are killing their countries, whereas Xi does the opposite.
Yeah I'm sure the people of China really love living under a dictatorship. But it's alright because batteries.
Polls do seem to say so, but I'm sure you know better
Oh yeah that seems like a great idea do you approve of our despotic leaders, yes or no, also what's your name?
Anonymous list surveys continue to show majorities . . . https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1032737
Presumably the slumbering conflict with Taiwan and in the South China Sea, as well as his support for some of the previously listed names (like Putin).
1 actually, trump is the useful idiot for putin. recently they loss some of thier edge with orbans loss, who was acting as intermediary for funding cpac and ben shapiro.
putin has enoug plastic surgery and preservatives, like the permafrost. so trump is the likely one to go.
trumps children seem to be circling him like a vulture.
I have been reading this article for twenty years
https://www.spreeder.com/
Just watch the Russian victory day military parade from earlier this month to see how “great” things are going for Putin and Russia.
Damn I didn't see it before. It looks sad and cringey AF. What a joke of a country
oh the russians are in a MOOD. you tell him, girl!
The only fucking thing that is disturbingly functional is the rat bastard's propaganda machine.
From reading ISW, my impression is that Putin is a moderate in Russian politics.
Yes, many hate the war and his dictatorship. But there are also some in Russia (including potential successors) that are more militant than Putin, and think he held back too much, that he’s not nationalist enough.
He keeps these people in line.
…And it makes me afraid of who might take his place.
Whoever takes his place will not have such a strong grip on everyone, so there will be a massive internal fight for power.
This is what all those Freedom of Russia legions are preparing for.
What’s left to fight with? The old, the weak, and the nukes. Their best hardware is largely destroyed and most capable soldiers are all dead.
the ones who arnt defenestrated that is.
If Russia turns on Putin, he is cooked.
Main problem isn't putin. Problem is russian culture. Putin is just the latest turd to float to the top.
It's been 26 years. I think it's fair to say he's an active participant to creating and managing a culture that keeps him where he is, rather than merely being the guy the wind blew in.
And, I'd argue that started very very earlier. He false flag bombed some apartments pretty early on.
To my mind, Russia is just ahead of the curve — it’s a country that underwent wholesale collapse in the 90’s and was ultimately stabilized by Putin and his oligarchs molding the ruins of the Soviet empire to their benefit.
Now the US is teetering on collapse as well, with dollar hegemony drawing to an end and global financial markets in some kind of a hissy fit to reshuffle wealth before the music stops for the AI bubble (and ultimately the real economy crumbling from climate destabilization).
Elon Musk soon becoming a trillionaire is the fourth horseman of the capitalist apocalypse. I have very little faith in the reasoning of anybody who cannot see that a failed car salesman and notorious lunatic being the richest person in the world – by a wide margin – is a sign of an economic system that is profoundly unwell.
Sadly, I think Trump and Putin may be previews for what’s to come when the oligarchs of world use the chaos to impose a new economic order, based on AI surveillance and severe policing of those not ”loyal” to the nebulous interests of the government(s). To my mind, it’s unlikely to be harmonious or pleasant to those in the ever expanding, bottom rung of societies like that.
I agree, he's likely done everything he could to make sure people don't figure out a way to get rid of him. I'm definitely not saying he was a passive participant in the phenomenon. He's been there for a long time now. I'm just saying he's more of a symptom of the greater cause that is the sick fucking thing called russian culture. Getting rid of putin alone won't fix things any more than getting rid of trump in the US will there.
Culture is the aggregate of about 1 billion things.
I hear you when you're saying there isn't a "try this 1 simple trick!" Fix.
But just because something isn't "fixed" doesn't mean it's not "better" or "getting better" or at least "not getting worse as fast". Position, velocity, acceleration.
It's a great start. Why concede defeat before the game even begins?
I've been reading this article for 109 years.
That turd has been floating on the bowl for the last quarter of a century...
That "orc" culture shit is idiotic and bigoted
I'm not sure which version of "red scare" you are referring to, but I know how nice most Russians are. Putin & his oligarchs are & have always been the problem.
why? is he gonna lose the next super fair election?
Weren't there rumours of a general and a possible coup a couple of weeks ago.
I assume he fell out a ground floor window and died from the fall?
He didn't, but this article mentions that people close to him were arrested.
Wagner Group Rebellion
First rule of a coup... Burn the ships.
No this was more recent, it was just before the parade the other week
It was about the ex-minister of defense, Sergei Shoigu.
This particular rumor is quite dubious, however. He no longer has much political power, if any at all, or resources after his demotion, so it doesn't make a lot of sense. The rumor was questioned not only by the original article (as far as I remember) but also by the experts and russian opposition.
The part about Putin worrying about his safety, however, feels accurate.
Ultimately you don't need much more than loyalty. If enough of the top brass are willing to follow Shoigu, his demotion won't matter.
I believe his clan is basically demolished by now. He does not protect his people. My guess is he does that to protect himself from a lawsuit, which is rumored to be prepared. (aka you do whatever you want with my people, in return you leave me where I am)
What's your opinion of the tyrannical despot, oh you find him to be a disappointment, is that it, you couldn't conjure up some more evocative language for the headline could you, no, just mild disappointment, oh ok it's profound, I guess that's a bit better.
I'm sure putler holds everything with iron grip, so mood of general population doesn't matter much. I just hope that FSB starts rebelling against him.
Better late than never?
Delusional gaslighting