Trust in Vladimir Putin rose to 74.2% in the week before Russia's State Duma election, state pollster VTsIOM said on September 18, up 2.2 percentage points in three weeks.

Approval of Putin's work as president climbed 2.7 points on the week to 70.1%, with 18.8% disapproving, according to the VTsIOM release. Approval of the government rose 3.7 points to 48.3% and of Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin 2.8 points to 46.2%. The survey of 1,600 adults ran from September 7 to 13, half by telephone and half by interviewers calling at homes along set routes, with a stated margin of error of 2.5 points.

The figures landed on the first of three days of voting, September 18-20, for the 450-seat lower house. The recovery matters to the Kremlin because the same numbers fell for seven straight weeks in the spring, taking approval to 65.6% in mid-April, the lowest since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, as internet restrictions and a stalling economy bit. Approval is now back where it stood in late March; trust, at 74.2%, is still short of the 76.7% recorded before the March slide began.

The rebound also coincides with a change of method. VTsIOM switched its weekly political ratings to the combined telephone-and-doorstep sample in May, after the spring decline, so the series either side of that switch is not strictly comparable.

FOM, the Public Opinion Foundation, which also polls for the Kremlin, found 71% trusting Putin in its survey of September 11-13, unchanged for a second week, and 73% approving of his work, up three points, Vedomosti reported on September 18. Approval of the government rose five points to 50% and of the prime minister four points to 53%. FOM interviews 1,500 people at home in 97 towns and villages across 51 regions, with an error margin of up to 3.6 points.

Neither pollster published party ratings: the election law bans their publication in the final days before voting and on polling days. The last numbers before the blackout had the two loyal pollsters diverging on United Russia, with VTsIOM at 37.4% and FOM at 33%, both far below the 49.8% the party was officially awarded in 2021.

The independent Levada Center, which Russia's justice ministry designates a "foreign agent", put Putin's approval at 76% in its August survey of 1,600 people, conducted face to face between August 18 and 28, up from 74% in July, with disapproval down two points to 18%. Levada asks a different question as well: invited to name politicians they trust without prompting, 36% of its respondents named Putin in July, against the 74% who say yes when VTsIOM asks about him directly.

On the one measure where all three ask the same thing, the share who disapprove of the president, the state pollster and the independent one are, for once, in step at 18%-19%.