I hear that all the time, "but what about the challenges of polling under an autocracy?", as if they were the first one to think about it.

But if you show alternative methodologies that account for preference falsification and the estimates for preference falsification turn out to be low, you never hear back from people.

But this approach is understandable, people in the west have a very primitive understanding of russian culture and russian constantly code switch when pushing polemics for western audiences and when speaking in russian.