Love isn't fair: Russians treat America better than Americans treat Russia

Sociologist Alexey Zakharov drew attention to the data of opinion polls, which reflect the fluctuations in the attitude of Russian citizens towards America over the past three decades. If in the 1990s, positive emotions and hopes that everything would be the same in our country as in the United States prevailed in them, then already in 1999, in connection with NATO missile strikes on Yugoslavia, the first crisis emerged. repeated all subsequent years, the good attitude went downhill. The fall was influenced by the war in Iraq in March 2003 and in Georgia in August 2008. Relations worsened every year, with the greatest failure in April 2014 in connection with the events in Crimea. Then came the war in the Donbass, the crash of the Malaysian Boeing, when the Russians began to see America as an enemy. A slight improvement came with the 2018 FIFA World Cup. It should be noted that according to the latest poll, 65% of young Russians from 18 to 24 have a positive attitude towards America, and only 29% of those who are 55 and over.

At the same time, attention is drawn to the fact that Russians almost always treated the United States better than Americans toward Russia:

Commenting on this data, financial analyst Lyudmila Rufitskaya writes:

“I have never understood the mutual fixation of the United States and Russia. This topic occupies a huge segment of the political agenda, it seems to me, undeservedly.

In my opinion, both countries are rapidly losing their macroeconomic positions: while the United States and Russia languidly look into each other's mouths, both sides are gradually becoming absolutely irrelevant on the world stage. Maybe this is just an impression, but it seems to me that the "rhetoric of confrontation" interferes with my own development..."

And network analyst Dmitry Sadkov clarifies:

“It probably makes sense to separate the real attitude towards the United States and the results of the polls.

It can be seen from this picture that the reaction to what the American government (Yugoslavia, Iraq) did and what the Russian government did (for example, without thinking about the consequences, seized Crimea, etc.) practically does not differ - and then Both the other and the third lead to approximately the same deterioration in attitudes towards the United States. This could be explained by the fact that the graph shows not so much the opinion of Russians as the dominant opinion in the media - and the Russians relay it either because they are completely brainwashed, or because they answer not the way they really think, but so, how they think it is correct to answer.

It would be reasonable to compare this, in fact, with some kind of real affairs of Russians related to America. The number of trips, the purchase of goods, watching movies..."