Putin’s recent fall in approval ratings has been steep. According to data collated by the Levada Center, an independent Russian polling organization, only 67 percent of Russians polled said that they approved of his activities in July 2018, compared to 82 percent in April and 79 percent in May. Other Levada data show that Putin’s trust rating declined from 60 percent in January 2018 to 48 percent in June. Some of Russia’s most popular officials have seen similar downturns: over the same six-month period, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu’s trust rating declined from 31 percent to 19 percent and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s fell from 25 percent to 14 percent.
In a July 2018 Levada poll, 40 percent of Russians said they believed that Russia was heading in the wrong direction, up from 26 percent in April immediately after the presidential election.
