The view that the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, wants to restore territories of the Soviet Union has been a big part of the commentary on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But how much is he in tune with the wishes of the Russian people? Our research suggests that while Russian citizens increasingly identify with the USSR, this is only partially explained by their desire to expand Russia’s borders.

People’s identification with the Soviet Union appears to have a clear and growing basis in Russian public opinion. Surveys we have conducted throughout the Putin period show that Soviet identification among the general population – something that had been steadily declining after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 – began to increase in 2014, when the Russian government annexed Crimea and supported rebellions in the Ukrainian regions of Luhansk and Donetsk. By 2021, almost 50% of those surveyed identified with the Soviet Union rather than the Russian Federation.

This pattern was also evident among Putin’s supporters. As the graph below shows, after we have controlled for age and affluence – two variables that are strong predictors of identifying with the Soviet Union, with older and less affluent people more inclined to identify with the USSR – the probability that Putin voters are likely to be Soviet rather than Russian identifiers increases significantly after 2014.