> "Russian citizens are also wildly enthusiastic about Vladimir Putin." As far as I'm aware, that's a bit out of date. It also, I believe, comes from a misco

> "Russian citizens are also wildly enthusiastic about Vladimir Putin." As far as I'm aware, that's a bit out of date. It also, I believe, comes from a misconception concerning human nature, namely that popularity is uni-dimensional. Which is to say, Russians who believe Putin is a superb leader in foreign affairs, great at making Russia seem big and scary to the rest of the world, may also think Putin is an ineffectual corrupt thug when it comes to domestic affairs. When high popularity ratings are attributed to Putin, the surveys ask a wide variety of questions: > How do you feel about how Putin is handling foreign conflicts? > How do you feel about how Putin is handling the economy? > How do you feel about how Putin is handling the drug epidemic? > How do you feel about how Putin is handling corruption and law enforcement? Approval for Putin varies GREATLY between questions like that. When it comes time to make a headline, whichever measure is chosen depends on which bolsters the story. If the story is that Putin is highly effective at manipulating his population, then the dimension across which he's the most popular is chosen for the headline. If the story is that Putin's power in Russia is faltering, then a different dimension is picked for the headline. It's not lying per se, but it's very similar to a form of p-hacking. Picking which result to report and ignoring the others is a trick used often in the media and academia. Here is an article that supports what I'm asserting: https://www.pewglobal.org/2017/06/20/president-putin-russian-perspective/ https://www.pewglobal.org/2017/06/20/president-putin-russian... See the nice little table at the bottom that breaks out Putin's approval rating on different issues. In 2015, 83% approved of the way he was handling Ukraine. This dropped to 63% by the spring of 2017. And by the spring of 2017, approval for how Putin is handling corruption is already below 49%. From this we can see there are Russians who approve of Putin's treatment of Ukraine who still think Putin is corrupt. (That link is page two of the article, which I think is generally interesting and worth giving a read: https://www.pewglobal.org/2017/06/20/russians-remain-confident-in-putins-global-leadership/ https://www.pewglobal.org/2017/06/20/russians-remain-confide... )