Sorry, Vlad. Your country seems to be the least-liked among leading world powers.
Just 22 percent of 2014 international poll respondents approved of Russia’s leadership among five major countries or confederations. This is the eighth consecutive year Russia ranked last globally, and it is also earning its highest disapproval ratings yet.
The United States took top approval numbers globally with 45 percent, topping the leadership ratings for Germany (41 percent), the European Union (39 percent) and China (29 percent), according to a new Gallup poll.
Notable, many countries soured on Russia from 2013 to 2014, including not just North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries, but many of Russia’s former republics including Kazakhstan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
In 21 countries — nine of which are NATO members — Russia’s approval ratings dropped by 10 percentage points or more. Majority of residents in 41 countries disproved of the job performance of Russian leadership — nearly three times the number of countries where majorities disproved of U.S. leadership.
Specifically, just five percent of people in Ukraine — where Russia last year forcibly annexed Crimea and is reportedly fomenting a brutal civil war — approved of the leadership of Russia in 2014, a 42 percent drop since 2013. Finland (9 percent), Portugal (9 percent) and the Netherlands (7 percent) and other three countries all showed single-digit approval of Russian leadership.
On the flip side, Russians disprove of the United States and the European Union — in even higher numbers than the rest of the world disapproves of Russia. Russians’ disapproval of the United States nearly doubled from 2013 to 2014, from 42 percent to 82 percent. Disproval of the E.U.’s leadership by Russian people doubled from 26 percent to 70 percent as well.
Leadership ratings between the West and Russia continue to deteriorate — spelling what could be trouble for future negotiations.
The poll of 1,000 adults, aged 15 and older, in each country was conducted from 2007 to 2014 via face-to-face and telephone interviews. The margin of error for results based on the total sample of national adults ranged from plus or minus 2.5 percentage points to plus or minus 5.2 percentage points.
