MOSCOW, July 28. /TASS/. The Russian public’s level of confidence in President Vladimir Putin has dropped by 0.5 percentage points to 76.8%, according to a poll conducted on July 13-23 among 1,600 Russians older than 18 and released by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM) on Friday.

"When asked about their confidence in Putin, 76.8% of those polled answered positively (down 0.5 percentage points from the previous week), while the level of approval of the president’s job performance dropped by 1.2 percentage points, to 73.2%," the pollster said.

A total of 48.5% of those surveyed said they approved of the work of the Russian government (a 1.3 percentage point drop), while 51.4% said they approve of Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin’s job performance (a 0.2 percentage point increase). As many as 59.9% of respondents said they trusted Mishustin (down by 0.4 percentage points).

As for the leaders of parties represented in parliament, 32.3% of those polled trust longtime Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) leader Gennady Zyuganov (a 1.3 percentage point drop), 29.7% trust A Just Russia-For Truth party leader Sergey Mironov (a 2.4 percentage point increase), 15.5% of poll participants trust Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) head Leonid Slutsky (a 0.7 percentage point decline), and 7.8% said they trusted New People party chairman Alexey Nechayev (a 0.4 percentage point rise).

The level of popular support for the ruling United Russia party stood at 38.5% (a 0.4 percentage point decline). The level of support rose by 0.1 percentage points to 10% for the KPRF and rose by 0.6 percentage points to 9.8% for the LDPR. The A Just Russia-For Truth party saw a 0.5% percentage point growth in its popular support to 5.3%, while support for the New People party dropped by 0.4 percentage points to 4.2%.