The Kremlin is facing a fresh wave of public criticism that Russian officials and outside analysts say is testing how it manages wartime legitimacy as daily life grows harder. The concerns, voiced through prominent influencers and picked up by mainstream political actors, range from internet restrictions to economic pressures that are increasingly showing up in polls, according to the reporting.
The newest spark came from Victoria Bonya, a Russian blogger and TV host who lives abroad, whose 19-minute video prompted extensive attention on Instagram. The video, published about 10 days before the Associated Press report, drew 31 million views and presented Bonya as supportive of Putin while arguing that people around him are too afraid to speak honestly.
Bonya’s complaints focused on multiple areas that Russians have faced in recent months. In the video, she told Putin that he was likely misinformed about local authorities’ handling of floods in Russia’s southern province of Dagestan, about the culling of livestock in Siberia that drew protests from farmers, about crippling internet restrictions, and about strains on small businesses. She also said ordinary Russians and even Kremlin officials were afraid to tell him the truth, adding: “There’s a lot you don’t know,” and that “People are screaming at the top of their lungs now. They’ve been robbed of everything they have, and they continue to be robbed. Businesses are dying.”
The reaction to Bonya’s video spread beyond her audience. Other Russian influencers released similar critiques in their own videos, some of which were later deleted, and the criticism then reached the state’s official messaging system. Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov acknowledged the public outcry publicly, saying Kremlin officials had seen Bonya’s video and that “a lot of work is being done” on issues she raised, adding that “None of it is being ignored.”
On the political floor inside Russia, Gennady Zyuganov, leader of the Communist Party and a longstanding Putin supporter, also raised similar issues in a speech to parliament on Tuesday. The Associated Press report said Zyuganov told lawmakers his party had raised these concerns before and threatened to repeat the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution if measures were not taken to deal with the problems, as pro-Kremlin channels and loyal military bloggers continued to float forecasts of revolt.
While the Kremlin’s approach is to justify restrictions as necessary for security, analysts say the pattern of controls and the shrinking space for dissent are part of what makes these episodes matter. Russians have faced recurring cellphone internet shutdowns since last spring, with authorities citing efforts to thwart Ukrainian drone attacks, but critics have argued the outages reflect a longer push to bring internet access under tight state control.
The AP report said those shutdowns arrived alongside broader censorship that over the years has blocked or throttled thousands of websites and platforms, including popular messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Telegram. Authorities have also promoted a new state-backed messaging app called Max, which many users see as a surveillance tool, while blocking VPNs aimed at circumventing censorship.
Outside the Kremlin, the restrictions and shutdowns have contributed to pockets of resistance, including petitions to the presidential administration, a class-action lawsuit against the government, and some street pickets—along with attempts to organize larger protests that authorities quashed. At a government meeting on Thursday, Putin again justified the shutdowns and urged officials to inform the public better about restrictions; Tatiana Stanovaya of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center said in a Telegram post that the remarks suggested security services “are doing everything correctly, and it will continue for as long as they see fit.”
Economic strain is a second driver that Russian pollsters and analysts said is feeding dissatisfaction. The Associated Press report pointed to a wartime economy whose initial boost from large military spending has faded, alongside high interest rates imposed by Russia’s central bank to control inflation and increased taxes that have weighed on businesses. Economic Minister Maxim Reshetnikov said recently that the economy’s reserves had been “largely depleted,” and Putin said earlier this month that economic growth had declined for two months in a row, with Russia’s GDP shrinking by 1.8% between January and February.
Denis Volkov, director of the Levada Center, told the AP that economic problems are a primary driver of the growing dissatisfaction and declining approval for Putin and the government. “It begins to show in the opinion polls, when the mood starts to get worse, just because life becomes harder,” Volkov said.
The report also tied frustration to limited prospects for ending the war in Ukraine. Sam Greene, a professor of Russian politics at King’s College London, said dwindling hopes that the war could soon end intensified disappointment after U.S. President Donald Trump took office in January 2025 and led an effort to negotiate a peace deal that has since stalled. Greene said: “The Kremlin was really putting some weight behind that idea as well. And I think that became priced into public opinion,” adding: “And yet that’s not happening.” He said the disappointment and frustration means Putin “pays a bit of a price.”
Even with these visible cracks, analysts cited by the AP said the dissent does not appear to threaten Putin’s rule in the near term. Mark Galeotti, an expert on Russian politics who heads the Mayak Intelligence consultancy, wrote that “none of this can be taken to herald the imminent end of Putin’s rule,” saying there is “no meaningful organized opposition” and that Putin’s “control of the security apparatus is unchallenged.” Galeotti added that in wartime, even critics do not want to destabilize the country.
Volkov echoed the view that support is declining only slowly. The AP report said his assessment was that Putin’s approvals were dropping “from a very high point,” and that for now, “we shouldn’t downplay or exaggerate this, because we’re only at the very beginning of the road.” Abbas Gallyamov, a former Putin speechwriter turned political analyst, said the frustration could deepen as public figures voice criticism, adding that “The feeling of power in politics” is largely tied to how widespread the position people share and defend.
In its own polling data, the Kremlin-linked VTsIOM reported a decline in approval in recent weeks, with Putin’s approval at 65.6%—the lowest level the pollster reported since before the war in Ukraine—down from 77.8% in late December 2025. The AP also said Russia’s top independent pollster, the Levada Center, reported a slight decline from 85% in October 2025 to 80% in March.
Even if the dissent is not immediate grounds for a political rupture, the AP report framed it as a growing challenge for the Kremlin: a sign that wartime restrictions and economic pressures are creating new channels—however constrained—for public criticism to spread and for approval to continue slipping.