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Why It Matters: Putin needs public support
At the start of the war, some US officials predicted that public support for Russian President Vladimir V. Putin would erode as the war continued and economic sanctions deepened, potentially forcing him to end the conflict. But it hasn’t happened yet. Support for the war remained strong in Russia. After a slight decline in early March, it only rebounded during the May 9 Victory Day celebrations in the country, according to FilterLabs analysis.
Still, US officials say that while Russian public opinion is difficult to accurately track, they also believe cracks in support have begun to appear in recent months.
Background: How to measure public opinion
Opinion polls in Russia, or any other authoritarian country, are an imprecise measure of opinion because respondents often tell pollsters what the government wants. Polls often ask indirect questions in an attempt to elicit more honest responses, but remain difficult to measure accurately.
FilterLabs tries to overcome this shortcoming by constantly collecting data from small local internet forums, social media companies and messaging apps to determine public sentiment. It’s also looking for a platform where Russians can feel freer to express their honest opinions, said Jonathan Teubner, chief executive of FilterLabs.
FilterLabs has partnered with a Ukrainian group to try to measure its ability to influence Russian opinion. The company’s work is most useful for gauging the direction of sentiment, rather than a snapshot. As an attempt to measure public opinion, sentiment analysis is not perfect, it includes many sources of potential bias and only represents the analysis of one organization.
FilterLabs uses native Russian speakers to help detect normal features of spoken language speech, improving the algorithm’s ability to detect language nuances, such as sarcasm and irony. The company is also trying to identify known sources of propaganda on these forums and track them separately.
What’s Next: A Kremlin propaganda push
Concerns about high casualties before the war eroded support for Mr Putin, prompting propaganda by the Kremlin. But that loss of support was short-lived, and the public rallied back to the government, according to FilterLabs.
The situation now seems a little different.
Kremlin-backed news outlets appear to be trying to counter the growing concern, publishing more sanguine articles about Russian casualty numbers, FilterLabs found. But state-controlled news media appear to have had limited influence on opinion so far this year, Mr. Teubner said.
US officials have warned that while Russia appears to be aware of the high number of casualties, so far that knowledge has not led to less support for the war or Mr Putin. However, one official said, the current victim may be different.
When the war was over, the setbacks on the battlefield became less of a shock to the Russians. So a single event has a hard time changing overall support for the war, Mr. Teubner said.
But over time, if the concern about casualties continues, support for the war is likely to fall. “Despite efforts to reverse Russia’s stance by information sources aligned with the Kremlin,” Mr. Teubner said, “the fact of casualties is still one of the Kremlin’s greatest vulnerabilities.”
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