Russian President Vladimir Putin struck a markedly different tone in this year’s state of the nation address. (Mostly) absent were allusions to new weapon platforms that NATO has no answer for, and the reassertion of Russian power and influence in far-flung lands like Syria and Ukraine. Instead the president turned inward, pledging to increase spending on various social welfare programs after years of disappointing growth and austerity policies meant to replenish the country’s oil wealth fund.

“There are too many poor people [in Russia],” Putin lamented, “we should focus our attention on fighting this phenomenon.”

The shift could one day be looked back on as a turning point for the Putin era. In the past, the Russian president has proven resilient to popular pressures, both real and imagined. Contrary to prevailing dogma, he tightened fiscal policy just when Russia was reeling from sanctions and lackluster growth, replenishing foreign reserves and carefully avoiding the accumulation of destabilizing debts. Foreign reserves now stand at around $475 billion, growing $125 billion over the past four years of open animosity between Russia and the West. It was this kind of austere thinking that also helped Moscow post a budget surplus of 1.6% GDP last year, despite its middling growth rate of 2.3% – a number that many believe to be artificially inflated. All in all, the policies of the last four years have left Russia’s political economy in a relatively stable position despite strong external headwinds of low energy prices and hostility from the West toward Putin’s foreign policy.

Yet the state of the nation address suggests that Putin is starting to get worried, and if you examine recent polling data it’s not hard to see why. According to one poll taken in January, Putin’s approval rating sits at around 60%, down from the dizzying 90% heights of years previous. A separate poll revealed that more Russians believe that the country is headed in the wrong direction than any other time since 2006.