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Poll shows over half of Russians expect no significant results from Putin-Trump meeting

Over 54% of the respondents do not expect changes in relations with the United States in the coming two to three years

© Mikhail Metzel/TASS

MOSCOW, July 9. /TASS/. More than half of Russians (56%) anticipate no significant results from the upcoming meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump in Helsinki, the All-Russia Public Opinion Research Center said in a statement on Monday.

As many as 33% of those surveyed said they had positive expectations from the summit, while one percent said that, the outcome of the highly-talked about event would be negative for Russia. Most participants in the poll (62%) believe that Putin’s chief objective during the negotiations would be resolving bilateral issues, while Trump would try to strengthen the United States’ position (71%).

PUTIN-TRUMP MEETING IN HELSINKI

Around half of those polled said that relations between Russia and the US are tense (49%), while the number of those sharing this opinion was 30% in 2017. Another 26% of Russians think that bilateral relations are frosty (compared to 29% in 2017), and another 9% point to hostility between the two states (compared to 10% in 2017).

Over half of Russians (54%) do not expect changes in relations with the United States in the coming two to three years. A quarter of the survey’s participants hoped for an improvement in relations, while nine percent say that relations will deteriorate even further.

A total of 40% of those surveyed expressed a negative attitude towards the US, while 29% said they viewed America positively. Russians are mostly dissatisfied with Washington’s foreign policy and interference in other countries’ affairs (37%), its bad attitude towards Moscow (34%) and sanctions (8%).

The nationwide poll involving 1,600 people was conducted on July 5, 2018. The margin of error does not exceed 2.5% at the 95% confidence level.

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