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More than 80% of Russians approve of Putin’s performance — poll

Vladimir Putin is leading in early May’s credibility rating, followed by the Russian defense minister who is still second in the credibility rating, while the Russian foreign minister comes in third

© Mikhail Metzel/TASS

MOSCOW, May 10. /TASS/. As many as 81.2% of Russians approve of President Vladimir Putin’s work, and 44.7% positively assess Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s activities, according to a poll conducted by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center and released on Thursday.

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"The president’s average approval rating for the last week is 81.2%. The approval rating of the prime minister and the Russian Government for the first week of May is 44.7% and 49.8%, correspondingly. The average value for the six years of work exceeds 55%," the center said in its report. It noted that the approval rating for the State Duma’s performance inched down to 42.3% from 43% in March, and that of the Federation Council moved up to 47.9% from 46.2%.

Vladimir Putin is still leading in early May’s credibility rating at 46.9%, followed by Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu (19.5% as of April 30 and May 2-6) who is still second in the credibility rating, while Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (15.2%) comes in third.

Vladimir Zhirinovsky tops the "anti-credibility rating": one in three (34.4%) respondents would not entrust him with important state issues.

The parliamentary parties’ ratings

According to the Public Opinion Research Center, the electoral ranking of the United Russia party has been growing throughout April, having reached 50.7% by early May. A Just Russia’s rating also grew from 2.9% in mid-April to 4.7% in early May. The rating of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) dropped slightly to 9.3%, while LDPR teetered at around 7.8% to 8.4%.

The state-run pollster conducted the survey in April - May 2018, questioning 1,000 respondents daily in at least 80 regions. The results show the poll’s seven-day average from a random national sample of 7,000 respondents. The margin of sampling error is not more than 1.2% with a 95% probability.

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