đŽThe economy remains one of the Kremlinâs key domestic-political vulnerabilities and a core issue for Russians.
A January poll by the independent Levada Center (6) recorded a deterioration in socio-economic assessments: the share of respondents who consider the economic situation bad rose by 7 percentage points from September 2025 to 22%, while the share of positive assessments fell by 9 points from May 2025 to 19%.
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2/23/2026
đ„Fifty-eight percent assess the political situation as tense or critical, 6 points higher than in May 2025, while the share of positive assessments fell by 7 points to 39%.
Key February topics in Russian social media include a sharp increase in housing-and-utilities (communal services) costs â which even the authorities were forced to acknowledge, calling it a âprice adjustmentâ (7) â as well as a steep rise in cucumber prices as a symbol of broader cost-of-living increases.
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2/24/2026
đ„On February 20, presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov noted that Putin and Nabiullina saw each other during the visit of the President of Madagascar:
âThey had an opportunity to speak on the sidelines â work mattersâ. Kremlin propaganda consistently emphasizes the focus on economic issues and the purported efforts of the Kremlin and the Russian government to address them.
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