Pjotr Sauer

Today in Focus, cracks in the Kremlin.

Piotr Sauer, welcome back to Today in Focus.

Great to see you.

Great to be here.

So you're actually talking to us today from Armenia, and we'll talk a little bit about why you're there later on.

But you're our Russia Affairs correspondent.

You grew up in Moscow and you lived in Russia until Putin decided to launch his full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

And I know that you're still in very close contact with a lot of people in Russia.

How are they feeling about their lives these days?

So for the last few weeks, I've been gathering as much information as possible for several stories I wrote for The Guardian about the mood in Moscow and in Russia.

And the picture I got was a country that is growing more and more tired of the war.

It has now entered its fifth year, both of the general population and as well as the elites.

I don't know how reliable polling is in Russia, but has much research been done to try and take the temperature of the population?

Yeah, of course, polling in a deeply authoritarian country should be taken with a grain of salt.

But we've seen from a number of indicators that from the beginning of this year, really, Putin's ratings have fallen.

His approval has fallen.

One poll showed that more and more Russians could imagine themselves joining a political protest.

Another poll showed the happiness index is lowest in 14 years.

But I think polling is just one indicator that we as journalists use to measure the atmosphere in Moscow.

And the others are the interviews, but also some of the outrage we've seen on social media.