MOSCOW, December 26. /TASS/: The average level of Russians' trust in Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2022 is 78%, Valery Fyodorov, Director General of the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center, said on Monday, citing data obtained in the course of daily telephone polls among 1,600 adult Russians living in 80 regions of the Russian Federation.
"The average level of trust in Vladimir Putin this year was 78%," he said during a roundtable discussion at the Social Research Expert Institute (EISI).
Fyodorov compared this data with the results of last year's polls. "If we compare November 2021 and November 2022, we see that then 64% of respondents trusted Putin, while this November’s figures saw a jump up to 79%. Last year 31% of those polled did not trust Putin, while this November only 17%," he said.
According to the expert, Putin’s approval rating last year was 60%, while this year three-quarters of those surveyed approve of his performance as president. "In 2022, the activity of the Russian president was approved in general by 75% of those polled. At the beginning of this year the figure was minimal: 64-66% (in January and February), but in March it has already surged 12%: up to 78% in April, and then up to 79%, and so on," Fyodorov said.
According to him, the increase in the positive assessments of the president's performance is linked to changes in the media sphere, to increasing patriotism, to the departure of some of Putin's critics abroad, as well as to the adaptation of most Russians to new developments in the country. "Putin's ratings are assessments of us as a society, they mark how united we are. The higher the rating, the higher the degree of public consolidation," Fyodorov pointed out.
When speaking about Russians' assessments of domestic policy, the head of the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center noted that 41% of respondents were content with it, with last year’s figures standing at 31%. The index of satisfaction with the foreign policy of the authorities grew by five points over the year; as for the respondents’ satisfaction level with domestic policy, it almost doubled.
