Like the majority of western news organisations, the Guardian has had no correspondent or reporter in Moscow since the invasion of Ukraine. But the Kremlin’s efforts to shut down outside media coverage has not stopped us from taking the political temperature of Russia. Indeed, as Pjotr Sauer and Shaun Walker report, attempts to close off the country have lost Vladimir Putin support among both the elites and ordinary citizens.
Talking to contacts made from many years working inside Russia, Pjotr and Shaun detail a shifting mood as the invasion drags on into its fourth summer with the economic and personal costs being increasingly felt at home. As one insider explains, “there is profound disappointment in Putin”, accompanied by “a growing sense that some kind of catastrophe is looming”.
