Poll: Half of Russians do not believe in a military threat from outside

“The unstable international situation has affected Russians' perception of the threat of a military attack. Over the past three years, the proportion of those who feel this threat has grown by 10 percentage points, amounting to 41% in August this year (vs. 31% in 2019)”, - the VTsIOM report says.

Among those who feel a military threat from the outside, the main source of it by a wide margin was the United States - 62%. In second place is Ukraine (32%), in third is Poland (26%). 18% of the respondents said that they were likely to be attacked by the UK, while 8% did not rule out that it could be the entire NATO bloc or Germany.

“Today, Russians consider the United States to be the main source of military attack (62% , +9 p.p. since August 2019). A third of the respondents named Ukraine (32%), in December 2018 there were almost twice as many of them (57%). This was the only time during the measurement period that Ukraine overtook the United States by a narrow margin in the nation's ranking of military threats. The proportion of those who call Poland a potential source of military threat has grown 6.5 times over three years (from 4% to 26%), the UK - 4.5 times (from 4% to 18%)”, - the sociologists noted.

According to the results of the survey, Russians have become less confident in the threat of attack from China. In 2019, this option accounted for 11% of responses, while in the new survey it is only 2%.

The survey was conducted by telephone interview. It was attended by 1,600 citizens aged 18 and over throughout Russia. The survey was conducted on August 13, 2022.