Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy published photographs of Kremlin documents that he said were obtained by Ukrainian intelligence, and claimed they showed growing public discontent with Vladimir Putin in Russia.
The documents shared by Zelenskiy on June 14 contained forecasts regarding the support rates for Putin and the ruling United Russia party in the coming months ahead of the parliamentary elections planned for September 2026 in Russia.
Zelenskiy wrote that the reports in question predicted that discontent with the Putin administration would increase and that this indicator would not stabilize at a certain level before the election. The Ukrainian leader also argued that support for United Russia was steadily declining.
The Ukrainian leader claimed that this could mean much larger-scale irregularities might be needed to achieve the desired election result. He also stated that protest tendencies were rising in Russia's regions.
Zelenskiy said that developments in June, July and August could further affect the political landscape in Russia. He added that the Kremlin continued to reject all public and private peace proposals offered by Ukraine.
Zelenskiy argued that if trends continue like this, it might become necessary to make a deal with someone else on the Russian side. These remarks came after his June 4 appeal, when he called for direct talks with the Russian President in an open letter.
The leaders of France, Germany and the United Kingdom later backed that proposal, and the call was strengthened with a demand for an immediate ceasefire and negotiations based on the current frontline. Moscow, however, rejected the initiative, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that developments on the ground would determine the course of the war.
Zelenskiy's statement came after reports that the Russian Public Opinion Research Center had stopped publishing Putin's 'open' trust rating following claims that it had fallen to its lowest level since the start of the war.
