Independent polling showing strong support for the existing leadership in a country that has a long history with (perhaps) brief interruptions of being a heavily monitored authoritarian state with both overt and covert reprisals, not infrequently including fatal ones, against dissidents cannot be trusted for reasons which ought to be obvious.

Which is not to say Putin doesn't have strong support, just that polling can't be relied on to assess that.

With Putin controlling the media and, well, much of public life, what else did you expect? It's not like you can just go do an anti-Putin demonstration without fear for your future.

Don't forget that in all of Russia's history, they've never been a functioning democracy, never had proper free speech for a decent stretch of time. Putin is just the next one in a long line of, well, czars. If, for millennia, an entire country's ethos includes "well, the boss is the boss, innit? what are we gonna do about it?" then reelection is a self-fulfilling prophecy. That does not make the Russians bad people. It just makes them stoic pessimists :-)

Now, it's true that the majority still supports the government. But it's nowhere near as overwhelming as the elections would let you believe (think 50% rather than 80%). And, of course, this still means that there are literally millions of people who 1) are Russian, and 2) don't support it.

I've already started seeing some rhetoric on the left that is explicitly invoking McCarthy in a positive way. That's not a good sign. Please dial it down.