MOSCOW, December 1. /TASS/. Russians’ fear of becoming victims of terrorist attacks has grown against the background of latest developments (the crash of the Russian airliner in Egypt as a result of an act of terror and the terrorist attacks in France). According to the results of a survey conducted by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM) published on Tuesday, the number of Russians who are afraid of becoming victims of a terrorist attack has grown by 7% over the past month amounting to 72%.
The current figures are close to those of January 2014, when the impressions of the December 2013 Volgograd bombings were fresh in people’s memories. The number of respondents who are afraid of becoming victims of terrorist attacks has grown from 65% to 72%, while the number of those trying not to think about the issue has dropped from 18% to 12%. As many as 15% of those polled (compared to 16% in October) said they were confident that nothing threatened either them or their relatives, and 64% of respondents voiced confidence that Russia’s authorities were capable of protecting citizens from terrorist threats (in October this figure was 77%).
"Terrorist attacks cause a shock reaction and a natural growth of fear. For example, not only residents of capital cities and big cities often chosen as targets by terrorists are afraid of terrorist attacks but also those who live in small towns and villages, not only in the south of the country, where such events, alas, occur quite often, but across Russia. Reliance on authorities does not automatically rid one of fears: those who believe that the Russian authorities will be able to protect the country’s residents from new terrorist attacks are afraid of them as much as those who do not pin high hopes on the authorities," VTsIOM expert Yuliya Baskakova said commenting on the results of the poll.
The poll was conducted on November 21-22, 2015, with 1,600 people surveyed in Russia’s 46 regions. The margin of error does not exceed 3.5%