MOSCOW, July 23. /TASS/. More than half of Russians want to bolster cultural and political ties with the United States and foster security cooperation, a survey conducted by the All-Russia Public Opinion Research Center revealed on Monday.
"Over half of the respondents (54%) see the need to boost cultural ties between Russia and the US. Some 55% of those polled underscored launching security cooperation between the countries, and another 52% believe there is the need to mend political ties. One in two of those polled (50%) spoke about working on economic ties with the US," the pollster said.
While most Russians (83%) heard about the first full-fledged meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump in Helsinki on July 16, their impressions are rather modest.
Some 48% of Russians do not expect any changes in Russian-US ties, and another 38% do not anticipate any progress, according to the survey.
Speaking about the US, Russians often say that Washington meddles in other countries’ affairs (86%), 75% label the US as a predatory state and another 68% say it is an influential nation.
"The Helsinki summit, which did not produce any major agreements, brought no changes in the Russians’ assessments on relations with the US…Russians today view the prospects of overcoming the standoff with the West rather realistically, without any inflated expectations," the pollster’s Director General Valery Fedorov said.
The nation’s leading polling agency conducted the survey on July 18 based on phone interviews with 1,600 respondents. The margin of error does not exceed 2.5% at the 95% confidence level.