Page 20 - RusRPTMay19

part in the elections. Among those who would go to the polls, a quarter (25%) said they did not know who to vote for. The number of voters supporting the Liberal Democratic Party leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky has increased by one percentage point - 6% are ready to vote for him. For the general director of the state farm named after Lenin Pavel Grudinin are ready to give a vote of 5%, for the leader of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Gennady Zyuganov - 2%. Opposition activist Alexei Navalny and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu would get 1% each, TV host Ksenia Sobchak less than 1%.
The politicians most trusted by Russians named Putin first (41%, the lowest result in the entire survey history), Zhirinovsky (16%), Shoigu (16%), Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (14%) and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev (13%, the highest result for all time). Medvedev (29%), Zhirinovsky (19%), Putin (12%) and Zyuganov (10%) cause the most distrust among the respondents.
Stalin’s popularity reached an all time high of 70% of the respondents according to independent pollster the Levada Center, as cited by RBC with reference to the March survey. Only 19% of respondents saw Stalin in a negative light. The willingness of respondents to justify the human sacrifice associated with Stalin “with great goals and results that were achieved in the shortest possible time” was supported by 46% of respondents, up from 36% a year earlier. Another 45% said that there is no justification for repression, down from 49% a year earlier. Western observers find it hard to understand the enduring popularity of Stalin among Russians, as he is solely associated with the Terror and mass killings. But for Russians Stalin is also associated with the rapid industrialisation of the economy that the Tsars failed to achieve, victory in WWII where the Nazi’s were an existential threat to the nation, putting the first man into space and making Russia a nuclear superpower.
Ukrainians are becoming less likely to look negatively upon their Russian counterparts according to a poll released in March. Some 77% of Ukrainians said they have a positive attitude toward Russians, while 82% of Russians felt similarly disposed toward Ukrainians. As far as their feelings toward Russia as a whole, some 57% of Ukrainians said they felt favorably, up
20 RUSSIA Country Report May 2019 www.intellinews.com