Russians say their country should not officially recognize new Ukraine leaders - poll
MOSCOW. March 28 (Interfax) - Russian citizens recently interviewed by the All Russian Center for Public Opinion Studies (VTsIOM) expressed a negative attitude toward the new Ukrainian authorities and said that Russia should not officially recognize them.
This opinion was supported by 68% of respondents, mostly residents of medium-sized cities (80%) and people aged 60 years old and over (74%).
A mere 18% of those polled said they would agree to support the recognition of Ukraine's new political leadership.
According to sociologists, this group of respondents includes mostly young people (23%), residents of small towns (24%) and poorly educated persons (28%).
Most respondents to the survey voiced their negative attitude toward the new authorities in Kyiv, with 23% of respondents calling them "nationalists and fascists", 18% "thieves and bandits", and 15% of those polled saying that the new Ukrainian government is illegitimate and it came to power by illegal methods.
Fifty-two percent of respondents believe that the situation in Ukraine will further deteriorate (68% at the beginning of March), and 36% of those polled said they saw no changes in the Ukrainian situation (22% at the beginning of March).
Eighty-five percent of those polled said they were following the events in Ukraine (72% in early February). This group of respondents includes mostly elderly people (52%), residents of Moscow and St. Petersburg (63%) and citizens with high salaries (52%).
The VTsIOM survey was conducted in 42 Russian regions on March 15-16 and involved 1,600 people. The margin of error was 3.4%.