President Trump’s intent to thaw relations between Washington and Moscow is already being met with skepticism among Russians less than a week since taking office.
Forty-six percent of Russians interviewed this week said they believe bilateral ties between nations will improve under Mr. Trump, according to the results of a survey published Tuesday by the Levada Center, an independent Moscow-based pollster.
While nearly a majority, the latest numbers signal a change of opinion among Russians when compared with the results of the pollster’s previous post-election survey: 54 percent of respondents said they believed relations would improve under Mr. Trump when asked the same question in November 2016 shortly after he defeated Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in their race for the White House.
Alexei Grazhdankin, deputy director of the Levada Center, suggested Russians may be less inclined to expect better relations under Mr. Trump given the opposition he’s since after winning the race.
Speaking to the U.S. government-funded Voice of America, Mr. Grazhdankin said Mr. Trump’s plan to thaw relations “will be no more than a pre-election promise” if he can’t effect change from the oval office, according to an English-language translation.
Levada’s latest statistics are the result of interviewing some 1,600 people across Russia throughout the first three days of Mr. Trump’s administration.
About 29 percent of the latest respondents said they believe relations will stay the same under Mr. Trump, compared to 27 percent in November. One in 10, meanwhile, now say they think relations may worsen under the Trump administration, up from 3 percent when the same question was proposed in the wake of his election.
Regardless of their personal opinions of the new U.S. president, the poll’s result suggest Mr. Trump’s inauguration was anything but unrecognized across Russia. When asked to state whichever recent international or domestic event of importance that first comes to mind, 42 percent of Russians surveyed cited Mr. Trump’s inauguration as the most memorable, beating out New Year celebrations as well as the Christmas Day downing of flight Tu-154.
The U.S. intelligence community has concluded with high confidence that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered hackers to target various Democratic targets during the run-up to last year’s White House race in an effort to elect Mr. Trump over his Democratic rival. Mr. Trump last week acknowledged the effort was likely Kremlin-ordered, notwithstanding repeated denials on the part of his Russian counterpart.
Almost one in five Russians polled said they were totally unaware of allegations involving the alleged Kremlin-led hacking campaign, according to Levada.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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