On the heels of President Obama's approval rating plummeting to 41% - a record low [4] - it is perhaps ironic that the supposedly despotic (amid shrouded in Hitler-comparisons and homosexual hatred) Vladimir Putin has seen his approval rating soar to 71.6% - a 3 year high - as Interfax notes "we now have a complex society that supports the president, primarily because of his stance on Ukraine." Interestingly 64% saw Ukraine as a key current event while 32% said that success at the Olympics was most important.
Via Interfax,
The rating of Vladimir Putin registered by the All-Russia Public Opinion Research center (VTsIOM), which exceeds the rating he had after his inauguration in 2012, will most likely stay high and may even increase, Nikolai Mironov, general director of the Institute of Priority Regional Projects, said.
"Putin's rating is even higher than it was in May 2012, when he became president. His rating has now reached the highest point. I believe it may stay at this level and may even increase," Mironov told Interfax on Thursday.
"We now have a complex society that supports the president, primarily because of his stance on Ukraine. It's not only 'Putin's majority' we spoke about earlier and which was composed of people from specific social groups. We now have a much broader consensus. We have managed to achieve the consolidation of society, which is expressed in this rating," he said.
"The stable increase of the president's rating is due to the successes in two Sochi Olympics: the main Olympics and the Paralympics. But the main thing is the president's stance on the political situation in Ukraine and in Crimea. This stance is aimed at defending the interests of the country and helping Russian people. It's very important to voters and respondents. No doubt, that influences the rating," Mironov said.
Putin's approval rating has now reached 71.6%, which is the highest point in several years, a poll conducted by VTsIOM shows.
Russians have been positive about Putin's work for several weeks now, since mid February, and the president's approval rating has gone up 9.7%, the public opinion poll says.
Putin's rating is increasing on the background of the political crisis in Ukraine and the situation in Crimea, which 64% of the respondents called the main events of the past week, and the success of the Russian national team in the Sochi Olympics and the beginning of the Paralympics (32%).
Russians have generally approved of the president's work for the past few years (60%). The previous highest rating of the president was registered in May 2012 (68.8%), immediately after Putin's inauguration as head of state.
So Obama needs to invade another country, have a successful home Olympics, and ban homosexuals?