• Former pro-Kremlin blogger Ilya Remeslo has been detained in Russia on charges of spreading false information about the Russian army.
• Remeslo, known for his criticism of President Putin, was unexpectedly admitted to a psychiatric hospital after describing Putin as a thief and a war criminal.
• Putin's approval ratings have fallen by a record-breaking five percentage points within a week, causing nervousness in the Kremlin ahead of the parliamentary election on September 20.

Ilya Remeslo, a former pro-Kremlin blogger who became known for his scathing criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has been detained.

Russian media published a video showing the blogger lying on the ground, wearing only his underpants. The state news agency TASS had previously reported the detention, citing investigators.

It was reported that Remeslo had been detained on charges of spreading false information about the Russian army.

Remeslo is being transferred from his home in St Petersburg to the capital, Moscow, his lawyer Sergei Badamshin said. In March, Remeslo had described Putin as a thief, a war criminal and an illegitimate president. He also lamented the political and economic impasse into which Putin had led the country with the war in Ukraine.

He was subsequently and unexpectedly admitted to a psychiatric hospital.

Remeslo had mainly made a name for himself as a supporter of Kremlin policy and an informer against the Russian opposition.

After his discharge from the hospital, he continued his criticism of Putin and the state of affairs in Russia, leaving many commentators astonished that the authorities had allowed him to get away with it.

Kremlin on edge ahead of election as Putin's approval ratings fall

With the parliamentary election on September 20 in mind, Remeslo suggested that Putin's political end was near and that a new era was dawning in the country. Ahead of the election of the new State Duma - as Russia's parliament is known - there is considerable nervousness in the face of falling approval ratings for Putin and the Kremlin-backed United Russia party.

Russian media reported that Putin's approval ratings had fallen by a record-breaking five percentage points within a week. According to a poll by the state-run polling institute FOM, 66% of those surveyed rated the president's performance as good. This was reportedly the sharpest weekly decline since the start of Putin's all-out war against Ukraine more than four years ago.

Commentators suggested that people were becoming increasingly dissatisfied amid the conditions of war and mounting repression. Specifically, many Russians are frustrated by petrol shortages following Ukrainian drone attacks on oil refineries, and by the blocking of social media platforms and websites.