Something is shifting in Moscow. Vladimir Putin’s iron grip on authority is still no doubt resolute, but more and more, Russians are willing to question it.

The nation's economy is faltering, edging closer and closer to disaster, while progress in the war against Ukraine - now in its fifth year - has ground to a halt.

This month, Putin’s approval rating plummeted to 65.6 per cent - its lowest level since the start of his military campaign - and a drop of 12.2 percentage points since the start of the year.

Pro-Kremlin influencer Victoria Bonya, who promotes fitness routines and a vegan beauty brand to her 13 million Instagram followers, isn’t your typical anti-authoritarian activist.

But in a bold 18-minute video that accrued 30 million views and more than 1.3 million likes in five days, the former reality television star made a stark intervention that rattled some of Russia’s top brass.

‘The people are afraid of you, artists are afraid, governors are afraid,’ she told the president, before listing off a litany of issues she claims are being hidden from him, from flooding in Dagestan and oil pollution along the Black Sea coast to the squeeze on small businesses.

‘You know what the risk is?’ asked Bonya, who lives near Monaco. ‘That people will stop being afraid, ​and they’re being squeezed into a coiled spring, and that one day that coiled spring will shoot out.’

But after 26 years in power, the 73-year-old despot has constructed a political and security system designed to suppress the first signs of dissent before they even have the chance to coalesce into a national movement. So just how vulnerable is Putin?

Bonya isn’t the only voice who is swimming against the current of hushed disgruntlement.

Ekaterina Gordon, a singer and television presenter living in Russia, warned Putin of a revolt among women whose businesses are closing, who cannot keep up with soaring mortgage rates and whose children are being denied access to higher education by budget slashes.

‘This will be the biggest divorce with the authorities,’ she announced.

Russia could even face a reiteration of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution unless it takes urgent steps to address rising discontent, according to the leader of the country’s Communist Party.

‘We’ve told you ten times - the economy is bound to collapse. The first quarter was a complete disaster. If you don’t urgently take financial, economic, and other measures, then in the autumn we’ll face what happened in 1917. We have no right to repeat that,’ Gennady Zyuganov told parliament, referring to Vladimir Lenin’s ascension to power after the toppling of Nicholas II, Russia’s last tsar.

And it’s not just the public Putin should worry about, because his inner circle also ‘secretly hate him’, according to the previously pro-Kremlin lawyer Ilya Remeslo.

‘I am the person who knows how to fight Vladimir Putin, who knows the system's weaknesses, how to interact with it, and how to lure people out of it,’ he brazenly announced in an interview with prominent media personality Ksenia Sobchak, known as Putin's 'goddaughter'.

Once a staunch backer of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Remeslo declared he’d like to be the new leader of Russia after a revolution, and dared the despot to arrest him.

'I'm using this interview to appeal to those who are in this system, who haven't yet decided whether to leave it or not,' he said.

'My plan is to create a platform and attract those who are afraid to speak out against Vladimir Putin.

'I want to become a representative of this mass of people, which amounts to tens of millions.'

Remeslo first came out against Putin in March, branding him a war criminal, liar, and a thief.

The lawyer afterwards was admitted to a psychiatric clinic in what appeared to be an act of Soviet-style repression, but he was discharged and subsequently renewed his fierce attack.

The respected Colonel Valery Pigasov, a retired officer, recently accused Putin of running a ‘lawless’ army, after it was revealed 17 elite troops from military unit 78986 were ordered by a commander to walk through a minefield.

He expressed outrage that Aerospace Forces fighters had been forced ‘to clear minefields with their own feet’, telling the Russian Public Chamber: ‘A dozen people were injured, and five killed.’

‘The lawlessness that is going on there in the special military operation requires special attention and a serious discussion, because what is happening there cannot be explained in any rational way,’ he said.

Even as Putin attempts to put on a brave face, his military is stumbling on the frontline.

After over four years of fighting, the Russian army has suffered perhaps the worst losses any major power has seen in a conflict since World War II.

Up to one in 25 Russian men between the ages of 18 and 49 have been killed or seriously wounded since the war began, with total fatalities potentially exceeding 430,000.

Since launching a spring-summer offensive on March 17, Moscow’s rate of advance has slowed in northeastern, eastern, and southern Ukraine - including in its priority effort against the Fortress Belt in Donetsk Oblast - and has lost around 10 square kilometres across the theatre.

Along the frontline, Putin’s forces have been unable to generate enough combat strength to break through without falling victim to Ukrainian drones and their omniscient operators in the 10-30km ‘kill zone’.

Former British Army colonel Philip Ingram told the Daily Mail: ‘For the past 18 months or so, Russia was advancing at huge cost in a number of areas on the front. However, that seems to have changed.

‘The Ukrainians have not just held them back, but are now probing in different areas and making advances, putting the Russians under pressure.

‘The Russian spring offensives have not just been halted, but have been turned around. From a tactical perspective, the Ukrainians are now calling the shots, and therefore have the initiative.’

Kyiv has also been pummelling oil terminals which serve as the gateway for Russian energy exports to global markets, crippling its war economy and forcing Moscow to slash oil production in April by up to 400,000 barrels per day.

‘Where is Ukraine attacking? It's attacking Russia's oil and gas infrastructure, its ability to continue to pay for the war,’ Ingram says.

‘It's attacking Russia's defence industrial base - Moscow’s ability to manufacture weapons, or adjust and adapt weapons, that it receives from overseas to go to the frontline. And it's attacking Russia's logistic nodes, as well as its command and control nodes.

‘That is something that Ukraine is being extremely proactive in. Not only are they doing that, but they're continuing to attack Russian airfields, and have had huge success in attacking the Russian Black Sea Fleet. Ukraine has the initiative…and Russia is on the back foot.’

For Charles Hecker, an Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and the author of the 2024 book ‘Zero Sum: The Arc of International Business in Russia’, the grinding war of attrition is finally swinging in Volodymyr Zelensky’s favour.

‘The fact that Russia still hasn't won over a country that it outnumbers in almost everything that you can count, is the greatest indicator here,’ he said.

‘Ukraine is learning more recently that they may be able to overcome one of their greatest shortcomings - manpower for the army - and that their recent advances are coming from technology…

‘We may never get to what looks like a traditional military victory here, where Ukraine pushes Russia entirely out of all of the territory that it occupies, or that Russia makes it all the way to Kyiv. That's not going to happen.

‘But what does happen is each side trying to win a war of attrition. At the moment, that appears to be swinging slightly to Ukraine's advantage.’

While the US-Israel war on Iran has been an economic windfall for Russia, surging oil prices and loosening sanctions, this represents just a brief boost amid a larger decline.

‘Moscow has been benefiting from the spike in energy prices, and it has been benefitting from sanctions relief from the United States. The problem is that it's not benefitting as much as it could because of the damage that Ukraine has done to the ports and to refinery infrastructure,’ Hecker said.

As a marker of the dire straits Moscow finds itself in, Putin has asked oligarchs to make voluntary contributions to the budget - the first time the dictator has pleaded with billionaires to prop up government finances drained by the conflict.

According to the Economic Development Ministry, GDP in January and February was 1.8 per cent lower than in the same period last year, as Western sanctions and high interest rates intended to combat inflation continue to choke investment and meant nonpayments of commercial bills reached a record high of $109 billion in January.

The Russian Finance Ministry reported in April that the national budget deficit exceeded $60 billion in the first three months of 2026, surpassing the deficit projected for the entire year.

Amid rising taxes, an inflation rate of 5.9 per cent and a central bank interest rate of 14.5 per cent - nearly three times the pre-war level - the cost of living is pinching ordinary Russians, who are increasingly fatigued by war.

A recent survey conducted by the non-governmental Levada research centre found that 67 per cent of those polled said Russia should move toward peace talks, while public confidence that things are moving in the right direction has fallen by 20 percentage points in six weeks to 41 per cent, according to the state-controlled VCIOM.

Part of the current dissatisfaction is rooted in the government’s heavy-handed restrictions on the internet, including its attempt to block Telegram, the country’s most popular messaging app and social-media platform used by more than 100 million Russians a month.

Officials claim the digital policies are counter-terrorist measures, but few believe them and are instead enraged at what they deem as unnecessary restrictions on their private lives.

Internet restrictions ‘make Russia impossible to be in’, Bonya said in her 18-minute address to the president, and even loyal members of Putin’s own party, United Russia, have voiced outrage.

Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of the Belgorod region in western Russia, the site of almost daily attacks by Ukraine, said on social media that he was ‘worried’ that the Telegram restrictions could endanger the lives of citizens who depended on the app for air raid warnings.

The newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta, which at times is gently critical of the Kremlin, announced in an editorial that ‘The internet is essentially the only issue where every party could boost their approval rating right now’.

‘Cutting off Moscow from the mobile internet was probably a step too far and triggered this great outpouring of discontent in the capital,’ Hecker said.

‘Moscow has - especially in recent years - been an incredibly digital city. The things that Muscovites could do on their phones and the mobile internet were astonishing - it was extremely modern in that respect.

‘The decision to disconnect the mobile internet has triggered this most recent wave of concern, and it's not just from people living in Moscow - it is also from businesses in Moscow that depend very heavily on mobile internet services to run their companies.’

The recent limits to digital freedom have added an extra layer of repression to the lives of all Russians, whose freedoms and general quality of life are being gradually squeezed as the unpopular war continues.

‘Inflation in Russia remains high. The economy is underperforming. Russians still can't travel freely anywhere around the world without extra expense and logistical difficulty because American and European airspace is blocked to them’ Hecker said.

‘For middle-class Russians, for working-class Russians, life has become much more difficult…. everybody in Moscow is feeling the pinch economically of the war. Then comes the mobile internet blockage, and it's just another layer on top of everything that's come already.’ 

For Jonathan Hackett, a former US Marine interrogator and counterintelligence agent, blocking the internet won't abate dissent, but will only bread more dissatisfaction. 

He told the Daily Mail: 'Repression without an escape valve does nothing to eliminate the causal factors feeding discontent. Russians affected by the repressive measures like blocking Telegram and other lines of communication will not simply put their grievances aside and accept the status quo. 

'Instead, they will seek other ways to express their dissatisfaction with Putin's policies. During the Cold War, this process was often described as exchanging ballots for bullets. 

'Although the Cold War is long over, repression anywhere still has the paradoxical effect of conjuring up methods of expression that are far more detrimental to the status quo power than if expression was allowed even in small doses.'

Following Bonya’s rant on Instagram about the state of affairs in Russia, members of Putin’s inner circle were clearly rattled.

Vladimir Solovyov, one of the despot’s more fanatical television propagandists, called her ‘a worn-out slut’, while Vitaly Milonov, a Duma deputy responsible for family issues, called her a ‘Dubai escort [who] mumbles incoherently’.

Dismiss her they might, her words have already spread throughout the country, showing others that criticism is an option.

But while anti-government sentiment appears to be spreading, Ingram warns against overinflating the power of dissent.

‘Putin is more vulnerable than he has been at any time in the last 12 months. But his position remains fairly secure. There's still quite a lot that would have to happen to properly threaten where he is.’

In regards to the voices who have dared to speak out, he encourages us to look at them with more scepticism, and actually as an extension of Putin’s power.

‘Some of these individuals that are coming out and voicing criticism will be doing it deliberately on behalf of the Kremlin, to see who then comes up, puts their head above the parapet, and says: “Yes, I agree.”’

He continued: ‘It's a way of phishing. They're using the dissent as a bait. For some of them, it's genuine dissent that's coming out, but they're trying to tread this very careful line between what they can say publicly, and what's going to get them killed. We just have to watch the individuals and see whether they get arrested or silenced over the coming days or weeks.

‘Putin tends not to hang around and leave genuine dissenters living for too long, especially if they're oligarchs or people close to the inner circle. So I suspect if we see them alive, then it's probably a deliberate act to try and see who else might be supporting dissent, so that that can be neutered.’

According to Hecker, the Kremlin leader has sensed the rising level of restlessness in his country, and has responded in a typically ‘Putin-esque and Soviet playbook kind of way’, by calling on ministers publicly to reconsider the internet ban.

He recently instructed law enforcement bodies to show ‘ingenuity and professionalism’ and to ‘accommodate the vital interests of citizens’ - thereby shifting the blame away from himself.

This benevolent posture of listening to the complaints and concerns of citizens may actually be a manipulative and carefully controlled way to reassert his authority, however.

‘In the Soviet period, and also during Putin's presidency, there's a tradition of using moments like this as pressure valves, and letting a little bit of the pressure escape from the current situation,’ Hecker said.

‘In other words, let some of the complaining happen. Let some of the complaining out. Let people vent a little bit. And that takes some of the heat out of the moment.

‘That’s something that has a long-standing history in Soviet practice and in Soviet propaganda. You can actually help keep a lid on things by periodically letting some of the pressure out.’

And while individual dissenters may be getting more confident in their ability to express negative opinions about the state, there’s no singular figure willing to rise to the parapet and unite society in a revolt.

Notably, Bonya filmed her video near Monaco - a safe distance from Putin’s lethal security apparatus - and gently couched her criticism using the familiar Russian trope to suggest the president just hadn’t been properly briefed on his ministers’ draconian politics.

‘We've seen what happens to people who openly oppose President Putin in a serious way,’ Hecker said. 

‘Cast your mind back to 2023, when Yevgeny Prigozhin was moving in on Moscow, and later he was quite literally blown out of the sky. Think about Alexei Navalny, who ran a legitimate national political movement against the Kremlin. In the February of 2024, he died a miserable and withering death in the Russian prison system.’

Moreover, Russian civil society - from NGOs and charities to activist groups - has been completely dismantled, meaning there’s no viable way for individuals to congregate into a national protest movement.

Despite the rising criticism, Hecker is doubtful that this moment signifies Putin’s downfall. ‘I have yet to see the transmission belts between popular discontent and political change. I can't yet see how you get from A to B on this…I don't see how this translates into meaningful political change,’ he said.

And when it comes to discontent within the president’s inner circle, rebellion is even harder - because top officials don’t know who might be an ally in a potential coup, and who might stab them in the back.

‘If anyone in a powerful position starts to create any noises that would suggest that they are considering rebelling against Vladimir Putin, they don't know whether the individuals that they're talking to to try and form a coalition are actually Putin supporters,’ Ingram said.

‘And if they're a Putin supporter, then the person that's instigating the discontent at that level tends to have an accident. They tend to fall out of a 9th floor window, or fall down the stairs, or fall off the back of their speedboat.’