Vladimir Putin is now caught in a death spiral of his own making

Vladimir Putin’s power is not at the mercy of the polls – and yet he pays them a lot of attention. So much so that he has his own private pollsters in the Federal Protective Service, who report the closed results directly to him.

The latest batch of these secret surveys was leaked, and they will have given him a nasty surprise – 55 per cent of Russians want peace talks with Kyiv and only 25 per cent want the war to continue. The results tally with the October findings of the independent Levada Centre, which showed that 57 per cent of Russians wanted peace negotiations and 27 per cent wanted to continue the war – an almost exact inversion of the centre’s polling from June. In light of devastating defeats on the battlefield, it would appear that support for the war in Ukraine has fallen dramatically.

This may not be horror at the war against Kyiv, however, but horror at having to fight in it. Yet as the continuation, let alone success, of Moscow’s war depends on Russians being willing to make sacrifices and fight, this distinction matters little outside the moral dimension.

Russians have never been ecstatic about the so-called “special military operation” – a problem partly caused by Putin’s failure to lay the groundwork for war in advance. In February, just before the invasion, 55 per cent of Russians had a positive attitude towards Ukraine and only 31 per cent a negative one.

Yes, there are bloodthirsty fascists, champing at the bit to slay “Ukrainian Nazis”, but they are as representative of the broader population as the anti-war liberals, i.e. not very representative at all.

Most of the population is apathetic and desperate to stay out of politics, encouraged to consent to a faraway war by narratives selected – with the help of polling – to resonate with a sense of resentment, humiliation and superiority towards Ukrainians. As in most countries, very few care so much about a political issue that they will put their life on the line.

But that is exactly what Putin is now asking Russians to do. He is faced with a Catch-22 situation: to gain support for the war, Putin needs success on the battlefield. To get those military successes, he needs to mobilise more men – but that, in turn, will reduce support for the war and further demoralise current and future soldiers, raising the likelihood of further defeats and the prospect of a death spiral of unpopularity for Putin and the conflict.

Support for the war was high when only poor people and ethnic minorities from deep Russia had to fight. The consequences only started after the war came to middle-class homes in the major cities.

Aware of this, there is evidence that the Russian state is switching its focus back to the first group via an immigrant recruitment drive. Even though it is illegal to mobilise non-russians, in post-industrial cities such as Chelyabinsk, the authorities have been shunting foreign men, even those without resident permits, to enlistment offices. Illegal immigrants are given a choice – serve in the army or be deported.

As a tactic, not troubling the comfortable lives of middle-class Russians might help to stay disapproval of the war. But for how long?

Regardless, in the short-term nobody should expect anti-war protests or that Russian public opinion will dictate the president’s next moves in Ukraine. Putin uses the polls to channel popular opinion in the desired direction, not to work out what to do next. There is only room for one dictator in Russia.