MOSCOW, March 12. /ITAR-TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rating is at its highest and the country’s leader would gain 70 percent of votes in case of election next Sunday, results of a sociological survey conducted by the Public Opinion Fund (FOM) made public on Wednesday suggested.

FOM experts noted that in reply to a question for whom people would vote if presidential election were held next Sunday 53 percent of respondents would vote for Vladimir Putin. “This figure of President Putin’s electoral rating is obviously higher than 48 percent a week ago,” sociologists indicated.

“Putin’s current electoral rating confirms that in case of real elections (with due account of a possible level of turnout, the number of voters remaining undecided and other indicators) incumbent President Putin wins confidently in the first round with the result close to 70 percent of votes,” sociologists said.

In general, according to FOM survey results, the popularity rating of the incumbent president has fluctuated within a range of 45-47 % in the course of the previous year. Putin’s current electoral rating is very close and even surpasses figures reached three years ago during presidential election campaign in 2012 and Putin’s victory at presidential elections.

“This record high upsurge and growth of Vladimir Putin’s popularity is linked with “Crimean campaign”. Putin shows serious confidence in what he is doing and does not go beyond legal field,” director general of the Centre of Political Information Aleksey Mukhin told Itar-Tass in comments on the sociological survey results. In his words, presidential actions “irritate those representatives of Western community who have a habit to see Russia not taking independent decisions.”

“I believe that this strong position of the Russian president resulted in such a high growth of his political influence,” the expert added.

For his part, president of the Centre of Strategic Communications Dmitry Abzalov noted that “the effect of the Olympics gave a good start with Crimea’s additional effect.” “Sociology testifies to this, as the point is that a greater part of Russian population support actions regarding Crimea,” he added.

Meanwhile, “as a referendum will be held and Ukrainian presidential elections will be most likely held in May Crimea’s factor will affect the public opinion for a quite long time.”

A sociological survey was conducted among Russian citizens on March 8-9, 2014. Three thousand pollsters from 204 settlements in 64 Russian constituent entities were participating in the poll. A margin of error does not exceed 2.5 percent.