Ukraine for Russians is “a habitual and annoying source of negativity”
Interest in political events in Ukraine among Russians has decreased since the beginning of the year. If at the beginning of the year 77% of those surveyed by VTsIOM were monitoring the situation in the neighboring country, then in July - 72%.
At the same time, a steady decrease in the share of those who constantly monitor the situation is recorded (from 38% in January 2015 to 18% in July 2017). If in the first years of the internal political crisis in Ukraine, Russians following events most often characterized what was happening as a civil war, now 19% think so, and 37% talk about “a mess, anarchy, lawlessness, banditry.”
52% believe that the situation in Ukraine is noticeably worsening, 41% believe that it is not changing, and 5% have seen a gradual normalization, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
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74% of respondents characterized the relations between Ukraine and Russia negatively (as tense, hostile and cool), 9% saw it positively, 10% consider the relations between the two countries to be neutral.
“The interest of Russians in the Ukrainian issue is becoming background - they are closely following news from this country less and less. We can say that from an irritant, Ukraine is slowly turning into a habitual and annoying source of negativity,” Stepan Lvov, head of the research department at VTsIOM, commented on the results of the survey.
The initiative all-Russian survey “VTsIOM-Sputnik” was conducted on July 5-7, 2017. Russians aged 18 years and older took part in the survey. The survey method is a telephone interview using a stratified two-base random sample of landline and mobile numbers of 1800 respondents.
For Russians , Ukraine is a "familiar and persistent source of negativity."