Muscovites Now More Pro-War and Anti-Western Than Russians Elsewhere

Muscovites Now More Pro-War and Anti-Western Than Russians Elsewhere

Executive Summary:

• Many believe in both Russia and the West that Muscovites are more interested in restoring ties with the West and less supportive of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine than are those living elsewhere in the Russian Federation.
• This is not the case, according to Lev Gudkov, one of Russia’s most distinguished sociologists. Anti-Western and pro-war attitudes are today “much more pronounced” in Moscow than elsewhere, mostly for economic reasons.
• That does not mean that some Muscovites are not against Kremlin policies but rather that fewer are likely to protest than have up to now. This situation will be the case until the residents of the Russian capital lose some of their economic advantages.

It has long been assumed in both Russia and the West that Muscovites are more supportive of restoring ties with the West and more opposed to Russia’s war against Ukraine than are residents of the Russian Federation beyond the capital’s ring road. This assumption has shaped Kremlin policy, Kyiv’s calculations regarding drone strikes against Moscow, and Western assessments of Russia’s political future (see EDM, March 1, 2022, June 24, 29).

Lev Gudkov, a distinguished sociologist at the Levada Center, the most important independent polling agency in the Russian Federation, argues that these assumptions are no longer valid, if they ever were. In a recent 5,000-word interview, Gudkov contends that anti-Western and pro-war attitudes are now “much more pronounced” among Muscovites than among residents of other parts of the country (The Insider, July 1). His conclusion does not mean that all Muscovites support the Kremlin or that all residents outside the capital oppose the war. It suggests instead that protests are less likely to spread nationwide than many observers have assumed and may therefore exert less political pressure on the Kremlin than expected (Point Media, November 15, 2025).

Similar arguments about the political divide between Muscovites and other residents have appeared periodically in the past. Gudkov’s interview gives them their most authoritative expression to date (The Insider, July 1). Moscow residents, he observes, are doing relatively well economically as a result of the war, while most people in the regions and republics are falling behind for the same reason. As the war’s principal beneficiaries, Muscovites have become “very loyal to the authorities and very aggressive toward the West … even though they live in a more informed and more educated environment.” Residents of the poorer areas beyond the capital, in contrast, “do not really want to fight.” Many of them “are sure that too much money is being spent on it [the war]” and believe it “would be better for that money to be spent” on their needs at home. Gudkov concludes that “anti-war sentiment is more common in the provinces” (Window on Eurasia, June 4, 2022; The Insider, February 19, 2025).

At least two additional factors reinforce this divide. First, Muscovites do not share the concerns of their poorer compatriots in part because they feel less responsible for what happens elsewhere in Russia, as a 2024 Levada Center poll found. Russians beyond the capital’s boundaries are aware of that attitude and resent it, leading some to stop caring about Moscow altogether (Levada Center, August 22, 2024). Second, as Gudkov stresses in the interview, Muscovites formed a disproportionate share of those who left Russia after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his expanded war against Ukraine in 2022. Their departure has left fewer anti-war and pro-Western people in the capital who might influence others there. Their exodus has also led many remaining Muscovites to accept the Kremlin’s charge that those who left betrayed the country and should be ignored rather than followed.

The dominance of Muscovites among these “relocators” (релоканты, relokanty), as they are known in Russia, has had another consequence, one felt less inside the Russian Federation than in the West. Émigré Muscovites have formed and led many of the exile forums that have convinced Western audiences both that they speak for all Russians and that they represent the country’s only legitimate future leadership. That standing has won them support from Western governments and institutions while obscuring the reality that they speak for neither all Muscovites nor all residents of the Russian Federation. It has also reinforced the Western tendency to overlook those beyond Moscow who may prove to be more important allies. 

Some may be inclined to dismiss Gudkov’s argument, given the continuing stream of poll results showing that Russians as a whole still support Putin’s war, albeit with less enthusiasm than before, and have absorbed much of his anti-Western messaging (Vottak.tv, October 29, 2025; The Moscow Times, October 30, 2025). Most analysts, however, routinely dismiss such polls as inaccurate measures of public opinion on sensitive issues, recognizing that Russians have learned what answers they are expected to give to avoid trouble (Public Sociology Laboratory; Sociological Studies, 2023). That reality lends particular weight to the judgment of researchers like Gudkov, who conduct focus groups as well as polls and who have long experience observing how Russia’s population responds to mounting Kremlin pressure to voice only politically acceptable views.

Two broader conclusions arise from Gudkov’s analysis. On the one hand, even on issues such as Putin’s war against Ukraine, income inequality within Russia matters more than the country’s overall economic performance (Window on Eurasia, March 24; Radio Svoboda, May 5). The Gini index, rather than GDP, may ultimately determine how and when sanctions take effect. On the other hand, because current economic trends are likely to spread inward from the periphery, far more attention should be paid to the regions and republics beyond the ring road rather than continuing to assume that only Moscow matters (see EDM, June 24). Moscow may well be where the final battles of these political struggles are fought, but conflicts beyond the capital will almost certainly precede them. Those who hope for fundamental change in Russia’s policies and political system must not only watch those conflicts closely but actively support them, rather than waiting for Moscow and Muscovites to change.