MOSCOW, 26 September 2023. Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM) presents the findings of a survey on the attitudes of the Russians towards foreign agents.

A spy, a betrayer, or a fighter?

Most of connotations related to the term “foreign agent” are negative: unpleasant associations (20%, +5 p.p. compared to 2022), betrayer of the nation (18%, +11 p.p. compared to 2022), spy (9%, −5 p.p. compared to 2022), public enemy (5%), the one who acts against Russia (5%), in the interest of another state (3%). There are also other associations such as opposition, secret service agent, those who left the country, those who receives foreign money (3%, for each). Two percent of the Russians have favorable perceptions of the “foreign agent”.  Over the recent year, views of foreign agents have changed: fewer respondents point to “spy”, but more respondents perceive foreign agents as “betrayers of the nation”. In addition, a new answer appeared - “those who left the country”.

As to who foreign agents are, six out of ten Russians chose the “likely betrayers who use money paid by unfriendly countries to disseminate lies about our country” option (61%). Only 16% of the respondents opt for the other viewpoint (“fighters for human rights and freedoms in Russia punished by the Russian authorities to intimidate the rest of the population”).

Status matters

Russians are split in their views on “foreign agents”. Only 6% of the respondents have purely positive views; the number of the negative opinions is five times as big (33%). Every fifth respondent has neutral perceptions (22%); a third of the respondents view them contextually (34%).  

The foreign agent status has an impact on many Russians. More than one-third of the respondents (40%) would change their views: 24% would stop reaching out to the media they preferred in case it is labeled as a foreign agent; 14% would use it less often. On the contrary, 2% say they would reach out to this media more often. Forty-six percent of the respondents say that labeling someone as a foreign agent would not have any impact on their perceptions.

Similar results were yielded for singers and actors labeled as foreign agents. In case a favorite singer/actor is labeled as a foreign agent, 49% of the Russians will change their attitudes to this person – they will stop watching or listening to him/her (34%) or will do it less often (13%) or more often (2%). Nothing will change the preferences of 42% of the respondents.

VCIOM-Sputnik all-Russian telephone survey was conducted 9 September, 2023. A total of 1,600 respondents aged 18 and older took part in the survey. Survey method: telephone interviews, stratified random sample based on a complete list of mobile phone numbers in use in Russia. The data were weighted for socio-demographic characteristics. The margin of error at a 95% confidence level does not exceed 2.5%. In addition to sampling error, minor changes to the wording of questions and different circumstances arising during the fieldwork can introduce bias into the survey.

Key effectiveness indicators, survey of 9 September, 2023:  cooperation rate (CR)* = 0.7933; minimum response rate (MRR)** = 0.0163; response rate (RR)*** = 0.0909. Calculations are based on corporate standard https://profi.wciom.ru/principy_standarty/korporativnyj-standart-po-izmereniyu-rezultativnosti-oprosov-sputnik-vciom/

* CR: the number of complete interviews divided by the sum of: а) complete interviews and b) non-interviews with eligible respondents.

** MRR: the number of complete interviews divided by the sum of: а) complete interviews, b) interrupted interviews after successful screening and c) all the respondents where it is unknown whether they meet the selected criteria or not.

 ** RR is calculated in the same way as MRR, with the only difference that the number of respondents with unknown eligibility decreases proportional to the percentage of eligible cases in the total number of respondents with identified eligibility or non-eligibility.