Levada Center report from earlier this month points to a rising anti-Western sentiment in Russian public opinion. Based on the (gated) article covering Levada findings (see http://www.vedomosti.ru/newspaper/article/840171/plohoj-mir):
- 44% of Russians held a negative perception of the U.S. in early 2014. This rose to 81% at the end of 2014.
- 4% of Russians saw US-Russian relations as hostile, this rose to 42% in late 2014.
- 71% of Russian hold a negative view of the EU
- 1% of Russians saw EU-Russian relations as hostile in early 2014, and this increased to 24% by the end of 2014.
- 40% of Russians still believe that Russia needs to improve its relations with the West, with 36% saying Russia should further distance itself from the West.
- Proportion of those who believe that Russia is now on par with the world's most powerful nations fell from 45% in 2008 to 27% at the end of 2014.
Levada Center comment on the results of the latest surveys points to the fact that end-2014 data marks the worst public perception of the West and the US in Russia over the last 25 years.
