Saturday, April 2, 2022

Excellent news for Mr. Putin from his boss, the Russian people. Their approval of his efforts on their behalf jumps from 71% in Feb to 83% in March per Levada Poll, “one of few independent polls in Russia,” per NY Times

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In sticking labels on Russian leaders, the West outrageously ignores the opinion of the Russian people.Russians will remember Mr. Putin as the man who pulled the country from the brink of collapse.”…US views Russia as its personal property: “In the years following the end of the Soviet Union, the idea that Russia was “ours to lose”” was popular among US elitesIn 1996 US even ran poor Yeltsin’s re-election campaign, Yanks to the Rescue,” Time, 7/15/1996…In 1990s U.S. fat cats plundered newly independent Russia, helped prevent democracy and economic reform, destroyed its middle class: “The Harvard Boys Do Russia," The Nation, May 1998…“Why the West loved Yeltsin and hates Putin," TheHindu.com, 3/20/2008

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Mar 30, 2022, Putin’s Approval Rating Jumps After Invasion, Poll Shows, Wall St. Journal, Evan Gershkovich

“President Vladimir Putin’s approval rating in Russia has soared since he launched his invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24-to 83% [in March] from 71% last month [Feb]according to independent Russian pollster Levada Center. [Per NY Times, The Levada Center [is] one of the few independent pollsters in Russia.”]…

Mr. Putin’s approval rating had for the past few years hovered in the 60s, according to Levada, which has tracked the longtime Russian leader’s rating since he became prime minister in 1999 [Per Levada, in Feb. 2022 71% of Russians approve activities of Mr. Putin as President of Russia, published 2/18/22, “Approval of institutions, the state of affairs in the country, trust in politicians,” levada.ru/en]

His approval rating last jumped so sharply after [Crimea voted to rejoin Russia] in 2014. At the time, Mr. Putin’s approval rating rose to 83% from 69%.

[Re: Crimea, Washington Post, 3/6/2016: “Analysts said that after the Crimean [people voted to rejoin Russia instead of being a US colony as Ukraine is]... Putin became untouchable to a large slice of the population.

It is a development that has flummoxed Western nations and frustrated Russia’s motley band of oppositionists. Some of them say that Russians are too scared to speak their minds to pollsters. Others claim that the poll numbers are manipulated, although most Western polling firms arrive at similar figures. [2015 Pew Poll.”March 6, 2016, “How to understand Putin’s jawdroppingly high approval ratings,“ Washington Post, Michael Birnbaum..Poll from Washington Post]

(continuing): “Levada, which was designated a foreign agent by Russian authorities [because it’s funded by US government anti-Russia group NED: Levada is a US government NED grantee: “The Yuri Levada Analytical Center, a NED grantee based in Moscow, is an independent polling agency that is well-known for its surveys on sociopolitical issues both within Russia and worldwide”], also found that the percentage of Russians who believe the country is moving in the right direction increased since the war began: 69% of Russians now believe Russia is headed in the right direction, compared with 52% in February and 50% in January, the poll showed.”

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Added: Newsweek on Putin’s “skyrocketing” approval among Russians:
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4/1/22, “Vladimir Putin’s Approval Rating Skyrockets After Ukraine Invasion: Poll, Newsweek, Gerrard Kaonga

Russian President Vladimir Putin has seen a significant boost in his approval rating in Russia since the invasion of Ukraine, according to a new poll.

Opinion tracker Levada-Center, a respected non-government research organization, issued a press release on Wednesday. It said that in March, Russians grew more supportive of the president, prime minister and government.

In March, the approval of the main state institutions increased significantly,” the press release stated according to a Google translation.

Eighty-three percent approve the activities of the president,

71 percent of the prime minister, 70 percent of the government and 59 percent of the State Duma.”…

The Levada-Center also concluded that there had been a sharp increase of those in Russia who believe the country is moving in the correct direction. In February, only 52 percent of people believed this to be correct while that figure rose to 69 percent in March.

Those believing the country was moving in the wrong direction had fallen from 38 percent in February to 22 percent in March.

In addition to this, the research organization issued a separate press release on Thursday on the attitudes towards the conflict with Ukraine.

The majority of respondents support the actions of the Russian armed forces in Ukraine. Among the motives of support: ‘protection of the Russian-speaking population’ and ‘border security,the press release said, according to a Google translation.”…

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Comment: Exactly the same concerns of American voters: borders, language, culture. The difference is the US is technically no longer a country having chosen to have a wide open southern border. You could say Central America is the US southern border. This is perfectly fine with the entire US political class. What remains of the US is effectively a military dictatorship: An autonomous Pentagon overrules both Congress and the US president. This is also fine with the entire political class. Elections are meaningless, first because we’re not allowed to vote to close the border or to end taxpayer funded foreign interventions. Second, as we’ve seen, even if a candidate who favored closing the border and ending interventions happened to win, he’d never deliver what he promised. Either he’d change his mind on these issues after being elected, congress would stop him, and/or the Pentagon would ignore him. US is a slave market. We’re slaves to the weapons industry and forced to finance our own genocide.

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Added: 2018 Pew Poll, 81% of Russian people are confident in Putin’s handling of international affairs

Poll dates: May 22-June 23, 2018, Pew Research Center survey conducted among 1,000 respondents in Russia, face to face interviews.

8/21/2018, “Russians Say Their Government Did Not Try to Influence U.S. Presidential Election,“ Pew Research, by Jacob Poushter

“Most say Russia is playing an increasingly important role in world affairs”

page 6: 81% of Russian people are confident in Putin’s handling of international affairs

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