Concept of populism is a promising tool for understanding the Russia’s power dynamic and development. In view of the peculiarities of the historical genesis, post-communist transit, and the nature of the political regime in Russia, populism takes on other forms and requires different theoretical optics than in Europe. Populism in Russia means establishing a special kind of relationship between political actor and the followers, while these relations rest on basic distinction between “the people” and “their enemies”. The paper seeks to answer the question: how did Russia’s power use populism during the pandemic COVID-19 and constitutional vote. According to Filc, I will analysis three distinct levels of populism as a strategy: material (specific policies and exclusion certain social groups), symbolic (political rhetoric and re-drawing of the social boundaries), and political (re-organization of political structures).
