Prigozhin’s public support remains substantial despite Russian propaganda efforts, polls show.

Yevgeny V. Prigozhin’s failed uprising has greatly eroded his domestic support, but nearly 30 percent of Russians continue to view Wagner’s mercenary leader favorably, according to polls released Monday.

The results of two polls conducted in June by Russian Field, a nonpartisan Moscow research firm, found that Prigozhin’s decision to march his Wagner mercenaries on Moscow on June 24, the steady rise in opinion polls that made him one of Russia’s most popular war leaders.

Mr. Prigozhin’s short-lived uprising, which he crushed within hours, posed the most dramatic challenge to President Vladimir V. Putin’s leadership in his two decades in power.

Mr. Prigozhin’s remaining support is particularly striking in light of a concerted effort by the Russian government to discredit him; the lack of public support for the mutiny of Russian political and military leaders; and the deaths of several Russian military pilots confronting Wagner’s rebels. The polls also took place amid an increasingly draconian crackdown on free speech, with Russians jailed for expressing anti-government views.

Experts are divided on the accuracy of polls in Russia, where criticism of the war in Ukraine is illegal. Some argue that repression prevents respondents from expressing their real opinions. Sentinel agencies defend their work by saying that well-designed surveys can still produce reliable results.

Between 70 and 80 percent of people who reached Russian Fields by phone refused to participate, highlighting the difficulty of capturing public opinion in the country.

Russian Field telephoned two separate groups of about 1,600 people across Russia, one shortly before and the other shortly after Wagner’s mutiny. The polls had a margin of error of 2.5 percent.

Overall, Mr Prigozhin’s support dropped 26 percentage points after the mutiny, according to the poll. Twenty-nine percent of those surveyed said they still saw Mr Prigozhin in a positive light, while nearly 40 percent said they viewed the mercenary leader negatively. A third of the respondents said they were not familiar with its activities or refused to answer.

The findings seemed to line up with an analysis conducted in June by FilterLabs.AI, a polling firm that monitors social media and Internet forums to track popular sentiment in Russia. That analysis showed that Mr. Prigozhin’s support declined sharply after the uprising.

As Mr Prigozhin launched increasingly sharp attacks against the Russian ruling class, his support steadily increased until he stepped up his risky gamble against the government, Russian Field polls showed. The share of Russians supporting him rose 14 percentage points to 55 percent from February to early June, according to the research firm, despite a lack of media coverage from state-dominated television networks, which continue to be an influential source of information. news for Russians.

“Prigozhin’s assessment was based on two pillars: Vladimir Putin’s support and honest rhetoric. He called things by their names and talked about problems that others were afraid to talk about,” Artemiy Vvedenskiy, the founder of Russian Field, said in written responses to questions.

The polls show that state propaganda has partly succeeded in changing these perceptions. After the uprising, Mr Prigozhin’s support fell most sharply among Russians over 60 and those who, according to polls, get information mainly from television.

By contrast, Russians aged 18 to 44 were almost evenly split between supporters and opponents of Mr Prigozhin, the polls showed. The mercenary leader and tycoon also maintained strong support among Russians who mainly get their information from the popular messaging app Telegram and Internet news sites, suggesting that his online media network has significant reach.

According to the country’s pro-Russian president, Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, Mr Prigozhin arrived in Belarus last week, although he has not been seen in public since the uprising. The Russian authorities have blocked news and other websites of the Wagner leader.

His future popularity will depend on how active he remains in public, given that there are few “straight shooters” left in Russia’s tightly controlled media space, Mr. Vvedenskiy said.

Julian Barnes reporting contributed.