Airstrikes in Syria have not affected Russian leadership's approval ratings - poll
MOSCOW. Oct 10 (Interfax) - Russia's intervention in the conflict in Syria has not affected the president's and the government's approval ratings so far, Valery Fyodorov, the general director of the VTsIOM sociological survey company, said at a press conference on Friday in citing findings of a poll of 1,600 respondents VTsIOM conducted in 46 regions of Russia on October 3-4.
"We measure the president's and the government's ratings each week. The first 'Syrian' poll showed that our involvement in the conflict has not had either a lowering or an increasing effect on the president's, the prime minister's, and the government's ratings," Fyodorov said.
"Before the airstrikes, Vladimir Putin's work was approved of by 85% and after the airstrikes by 86% of Russians. Taking into account the 3.5% error margin, there are no changes," Fyodorov said.
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev's approval rating also remained the same (67%), he said.
"It can be concluded that the decision on bombing Syria has not had any effect on our authorities' ratings," he said.
Fyodorov did not rule out that the president's and his team's ratings could even grow.
"There may be a time factor in the fact that the Syrian conflict has not yet had any effect on the ratings. But I don't rule out that this would further go positively. There have been no casualties so far, the effect from the airstrikes is quite high, only enemies are getting killed. It could be called an ideal war," he said.
Everything indicates that Russian society has accepted the leadership's decisions, he said.
"Decisions are made by the country's political leadership, and then there is a moment of truth: this will either be rejected or accepted and credence will be given to the leadership. We see that the events are following the latter scenario. This is quite solid support, I expected it to be weaker. The explanation offered by the president has satisfied a significant part of our fellow countrymen. Most Russians are ready to support the president's decision on the terms on which this operation was declared, namely, not to rescue Assad and not to conduct a ground operation but destroy only terrorists," he said.