Growing problems for the Soviet Federation

In a message on social media, Donald Trump claimed that Russia’s economy is crumbling and that he would do it the favour of allowing it to end a “stupid” war that should not have started. Clearly, the message must not have been funny in the Kremlin and reminds us that the Russian economy is showing clear signs of depletion.

We see this in the West, but Russians are suffering from it, so the question arises as to how Russian society is experiencing the collapse of its economy; the answer has been the focus of the latest analysis by the Institute of Conflict Studies and Analysis of Russia (IKAR), which has carried out a complex investigation into the main issues that aroused Russians’ interest in 2024 and the beginning of this year. Using artificial intelligence, the research provides a clear understanding of Russian society’s attitudes, daily topics of discussion and the most common reactions of Russian citizens.

“All sociological research indicates that the economic situation is worsening and that the economy has become the main problem for Russians. The majority of the population is witnessing the degradation of the economic situation and its effects,” says Oleksandr Shulga, director of IKAR, “These problems started in the second half of 2024 and have been worsening ever since: price hikes, inflation, ruble devaluation, etc. Rising inflation and the central bank’s measures to mitigate it were among the main topics with more than 600 million views on Telegram and caused more than 7.5 million messages, of which more than half were negative and only 5% positive. Since May 2024, the number of reactions has increased fivefold.”

Of course, inflation has also led to significant price increases for all kinds of goods and services, including housing and utilities, as well as idyllic supermarkets like the one Tucker Carlson visited in Moscow, complete with coin-operated carts and where you could savor the world’s best hamburger. “In the first two weeks of January 2025, the price hike topic kept its upward trend, gathering 56.6 million views and almost a million reactions. The devaluation of the ruble has also attracted a lot of attention, because for the Russian citizen, the dollar becoming more and more expensive is tangible proof that the economy is doing badly.”

To combat this trend and win the battle of the narrative despite the reality, Shulga points out that the official media have employed bots and generated all sorts of fake sources to blame everyone but the Kremlin for the situation, including Russians themselves. “In the cited price hike debate in January, more than 560 compromised sources and 1,200 bots were involved in moderating the public debate during this period. While for the Kursk case, which has generated half a billion views and 29 million reactions, Kremlin propaganda used 4,000 bots to monitor the debate and 1250 compromised channels*.”

Kursk is proving to be a real headache for the Kremlin and a proof of the Russian army’s inability to drive Ukrainian forces out of its territory, and it is, in Shulga’s opinion, where the Russian propaganda machine is being used most thoroughly. “One of the main tactics used by the Kremlin to reduce the negative effects of the Kursk operation was to actively promote the narrative of major successes of the Russian army in Donbas, including through military channels. However, in 2024, the Russian army still failed to capture Pokrovsk. Relevant messages on z-channels about the fighting near Pokrovsk received 744 million views and nearly 12 million reactions.”

Not only has Kursk generated a bad image of Putin (more than half of the comments on Telegram messages about his leadership are negative), other events such as the death of opposition figure Alexei Navalny, the ‘Crocus City Hall’ terrorist attack or, more recently, the withering fall of the Assad regime, have generated negative reactions that the Kremlin has combated with the use of more than 1,800 compromised communication channels and almost 10,000 bots.

“Big numbers don’t lie,” Shulga points out, “if you add an unpopular war to the socio-economic problems, discontent can only grow despite propaganda efforts to control the debate. This has generated the need for an internal enemy to blame for the problems generated by the regime itself.” Shulga believes it is not credible to blame an opposition that is exiled, silenced or in jail, so the Kremlin has to look for another scapegoat. “There is an obvious coordinated effort to divert Russians’ attention to the immigration problem. We’re talking about 7.7 billion views and 104 million reactions, it’s the Kremlin’s biggest campaign so far and it’s clearly being used to distract attention from socio-economic problems.”

Problems are growing in the neo-Soviet empire despite tireless propaganda efforts. Repeated announcements of the crumbling of the Ukrainian army and the mantra of “Russia Advances” are confronted with the reality that the invaders have seized 4,168 sq. Km, mostly fields and small settlements in Ukraine and Kursk Oblast, at a declared cost of over 420,000 casualties in 2024. Thus, Russian forces have suffered about 102 casualties per square kilometer of Ukrainian territory taken according to ISW (Institute for Study of War) data. Moreover, neither the Ukrainian front has been sunk nor has the Russian territory of Kursk been recaptured. Added to this are all the socio-economic problems resulting from the depletion of the “invincible” Russian economy, a fact that is putting in check the Putin regime’s best weapon: propaganda.

*A compromised channel is a channel that is often used to spread disinformation. These channels join together to run fake news campaigns simultaneously and in a coordinated manner. These channels are identified through the use of AI platforms.