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years after the referendum, and 13% have a negative view of the events of 2014, chief of the political analysis department of the Russian Public Opinion Research Center Mikhail Mamonov said on Thursday. "81% of Russians stated that they have a positive view of Crimea’s reunification with Russia, 46% said that it is undoubtedly positive. Only 13% of Russians expressed a negative view. When we estimate the decision to make Crimea part of Russia, the share of positive estimations goes up: 86% of Russians stated that Russia was right to make Crimea part of Russia. Only 10% of Russians state that their opinion is negative," Mamonov said during a round table of the Social Research Expert Institute (EISI) dedicated to the seventh anniversary of Crimea’s reunification with Russia.
Nearly two out of three Russians believe the conspiracy theory that the coronavirus is a bioweapon created by humans, a survey by the independent Levada Center polling agency said Monday. According to Levada’s results, 64% of Russian respondents said Covid-19 was artificially created as a new form of biological weapon. That compares with 23% who said the virus emerged naturally and 13% who couldn’t answer. Levada’s survey also found a correlation between rapidly declining daily caseloads and Russians’ fear of getting infected, The Moscow Times reported. More than half, or 56%, of Russian respondents said they are not afraid of catching Covid-19 versus 43% who said they are afraid of it. That marks the lowest share of those who fear the virus since February 2020, when the pandemic had just started spreading worldwide and before Russia saw significant Covid-19 case numbers. The figures stand in inverse proportion to October 2020, when 64% of Russians said they were afraid of catching the virus versus 34% who weren’t afraid as daily infection rates began to soar. Vaccine hesitancy is also on the rise, with 62% of respondents saying they don’t want to get Russia’s Sputnik V jab compared with 30% who do. Younger Russians were more skeptical of the domestically manufactured vaccine than their older counterparts by a 74-to-56 margin.
Support for Russia's pro-Kremlin ruling party has dropped to an eight- year low ahead of legislative elections where it seeks to retain a supermajority this autumn, independent pollster the Levada Center said on March 11. United Russia, which enjoys a two-thirds majority in the country’s lower house of parliament, would receive 27% of the vote if it was held this Sunday, according to the poll. The last time Untied Russia’s popularity has fallen this low was in June 2013, just before the annexation of Crimea, which Russian President Vladimir Putin used to reinvigorate the party’s rating. It has since jumped to almost 40% in 2017 before plateauing at around 30% in recent years. United Russia’s support also dropped among likely Russian voters, though its 42% rating was still at least double those of its closest competitors. The low rating of United Russia is a serious problem for the Kremlin which is getting ready to launch its campaign for a general election slated for September 19.
Russian life expectancy fell by more than two years in 2020 to 71.1 years from 73.3 in 2019, the first decline in almost two decades, RT reports. The fall
36 RUSSIA Country Report April 2021 www.intellinews.com