Eighty-six percent of Russians polled by the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center said their country’s influence in international affairs is extensive.
"The estimates of Russia’s position on the world stage have grown significantly. In 2016, 75 percent of Russians said that our country’s influence in international affairs was great, while in 2017 their number grew to 86 percent (which is a maximum figure over the years)," the pollster said.
Meanwhile, a number of skeptics has almost halved, sinking from 18 percent to 10 percent. "Over three past years, the hope that the country will acquire the status of a great power has transformed into certainty that it already is," the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center said.
Survey: Now Russians want to be friends with the West again
While in 2014, 54 percent of those polled said that Russia will be one of the world’s leading states in the near future, today 57 percent of Russians believe that it is already one of them.
Presently, about one-third of Russians (31 percent) say this will happen within the next several decades, and 10 percent disagree with this. The sense of a military threat has been gradually on the decline, with more than half of the respondents saying that there is no threat of military attack on our country. Those who feel such a threat (42 percent) consider the U.S. and Ukraine the potential sources of aggression.
"Russians’ self-esteem continues to increase. This stems primarily from Russia’s active role and importance as a global political player. The poll registered a record high share of respondents who believe that our country has already acquired the status of a great power or will do so quite soon," the pollster’s Director General, Valery Fyodorov, said.
The poll was conducted on March 2-3, 2017, with 1,200 Russians aged 18 and over taking part in it. The maximum range of error does not exceed 3.5 percent.
Source: TASS