It is often asserted that the battle of public opinion on the Russian invasion is being won by Ukraine. This is true. President Zelensky has shown a very distinctive communication style and a very good ability to impose his narrative on the media at speech.

However, when doing this evaluation, we usually look at who is winning this communication battle in the global north. Could something different be happening in Russia?

Pro-Putin views

There are Russian public opinion researchorganisations that are part of the Russian state, such as the Russian Centre for Public Opinion research(VCIOM) and the Public Opinion Fund(FOM). As might be expected, the results of their measurements tend to be very favourable to Putin.

"In your opinion, is President V. Putin doing well or badly in his work?" is a classic question in both questionnaires. The resultfor the latest published surveyis 71 % for the option "quite well", with 7 points increase in the week of the invasion compared to the previous week.

"Do you prefer to trust or distrust Putin?" is another question. Here, 'trust' scores 50% (up 13 points from the week before the invasion), while 'distrust' scores 30% (down 15 points).

There are also specific questions about the war between Russia and Ukraine. "On 24 February Vladimir Putin announced the start of a military operation in Ukraine - do you think the decision to carry out a military operation was right or wrong? In the most recent surveyWCIOM 68% responded that it is right, 22% that it is wrong and 10% said they did not have enough information to give an opinion.

This question offers a first clear warning about measurement: to speak of "military operation" as a euphemism for war offers a significant bias in the questionnaire.

When results are induced

Surveys are highly sensitive instruments for measuring public opinion that can be altered by many variables. One of these is questionnaire. Any pollster, even using moderately serious and orthodox methods, can affect the results to favour one answer. That is, it is technically possible to induce results with political or other justification.

There are two types of biases that can be deliberately or inadvertently induced by questionnaire: the first is semantic subject- the construction of the questions, the words used and their exact phrasing - and the second is sequential (relating to the logic followed by questionnaire).

When a questionnaireasks first about sympathy for Putin and then about the level of agreementon the 'military operation', it sends the interviewee another bias. This time it also serves as a warning signal about the possible origin of survey.

A third important bias may come from the survey method. Both state-run polling centres work with telephone surveys. Receiving a call at home or on one's mobile phone inquiring about one's sympathies for Putin can immediately trigger the respondent's instinct for self-preservation.

The German public opinion researcher Elizabeth Noelle Naumann claimed that we all have a quasi-statistical sense organ that allows us to gauge the state of public opinion and which opinions are in the majority. Noelle-Naummann identified "silent minorities": when we feel we are in the minority, we are more likely to keep silent about our true political preferences.

In an authoritarian regime this response is not a trivial reaction of hypersensitivity, but rather a protective mechanism in the face of a statusthat may present very real risks.

Pro-war consensus in doubt

Even so, the two pollsters closest to Putin mentioned above have some interesting results datathat call into question the majority consensus in favour of war.

Sociologist Alexey Bessudnov underlines the existence of gender, age and urban/rural divides. Young people are less likely to support the military operation. Among people over 70, nine out of 10 support the "special military operation". Among those under 30, about half say they are against it, while some of the other half say they "don't know" how to answer the question. Women say they do not support the "military operation" more often than men.

Another important element, also related to age, is that Russian television viewers approve of the "military operation" and support is significantly higher among those who watch television on a daily basis. It is not just that television is dedicated to propaganda, but that TV viewers are already at agreementwith the content of programmes on social or political issues. It is difficult to discern where cause and effect lie in this relationship. As in many other societies around the world, it is the case that most people over 45 years of age watch television every day, while among young people almost no one does.

Public opinion in authoritarian regimes

It is clear that the researchof public opinion on political issues in authoritarian regimes has a different logic than polls in free and democratic societies.

Iranian professor Ammar Maleki of Tilburg University points out that Iranians (and possibly Russians) do not report their sources of information honestly when the anonymity of the surveyis not guaranteed. Forty per cent of Iranians said they watched satellite channels on an online survey, compared to 5 per cent who said the same on a telephone survey.

The 1990 Nicaraguan presidential election, when Violeta Chamorro snatched the presidency from Daniel Ortega, aroused enormous interest in the world, and was therefore one of the most closely scrutinised electoral processes. At least 17 pollsters, some of the most prestigious in the region and in the US, tried to predict the results. Only two pollsters were correct in predicting Chamorro's victory, and they were not among the best known.

An important differentiating element was the pencil with which the interviewer wrote down the respondent's answers. Most did so with red and black pencils, which were the only ones available on the Nicaraguan market at the time (a not very subtle way in which the Sandinista revolution wanted to enter schools). The pollsters who got their predictions right used yellow pencils, purchased outside Nicaragua. This pencil sent a message to respondents about the "correct answers" they were expected to give.

What the polls don't say

As important as what the polls say is also what they do not say. Although Russian polls normally measure on a weekly basis, WCIOM has not updated them since the week following the invasion, which might suggest that there have been significant shifts in public opinion as the duration of the war has extended.

Russian opposition leader Navalny elaborates on this point in a recent Twitter thread on surveyonline.

A surveysubject panel conducted among Moscow internet users shows rapid changes in assessmentof Russia's role in the war. The proportion of respondents who see Russia as the aggressor reportedly doubled in the first week of the war, from 29% to 53%, while the proportion of those who saw Russia as a 'peacemaker' halved from 25% to 12%.

While the method of Navalny's surveymight be questionable, the change in opinion is not so questionable and could point to a generalisable trend. An online surveypanel, although by its very nature biased by excluding non-internet users, can be very useful in identifying a shift Bor a turning point in public opinion capable of reversing trends.

dataPerhaps the most credible public opinion polls in Russia are those of the Levada Center, a non-governmental researchorganisation that has been conducting polls since 1988, some at partnershipwith committee in Chicago. In 2016 it was labelled a 'foreign agent' by the Kremlin.

Levada polls from 17-21 February found that a majority of respondents (52%) viewed Ukraine negatively, while a majority (60%) blamed the US and NATO for the escalation of tensions in eastern Ukraine. Only 4 per cent blamed Russia. In mid-February, even before the start of the 'special operation', there was a Bdeterioration in people's attitudes towards Western countries. There was an increase in negativity towards the US, the EU, Britain and Germany.

The Levada Center also recently asked about less conjunctural aspects such as Economicsor the role of the state. In October 2021, to the question "which political system is the best", 49% answered the Soviet system, 18% the current system and 16% Western democracy. When asked "which economic system is the best", 62% of the answers referred to state planning and distribution and 24% to private property and the market. To a large extent, the nostalgia for the Soviet Union in these responses explains much of the support for Putin and the invasion.

Russian propaganda aimed at the global south

The numbers indicate that, at least so far, Russian public opinion is on Putin's side in the invasion. When we say that Ukraine has won the communications battle in this war, we are referring strictly to what is happening in the West. Russian public opinion numbers are different, and something similar may be happening in non-Western countries.

A very interesting analysis by Carl Miller explains how Russian propaganda and its efforts to construct pro-invasion narratives may be being directed at the global south.

Through an analysis of Twitter clusters, Miller finds very clearly that Russian disinformation is aimed more at the BRICS, Africa, Asia and Latin America than at the West. And the message sent is aimed not so much at saving Russia, but at condemning the US. The narrative is that Russia has acted defensively in the face of NATO expansionism and the West's response would be hypocritical, as it has made other conflicts invisible.

When we say with certainty that Ukraine has won the communications battle, we will have to be more cautious in identifying the precise arena in which that war is being fought.