Russians say that the situation Syria has deteriorated and qualify it as civil war.

MOSCOW, February 27, 2018. The Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM) presents the results of a study describing the Russian assessments of the situation in Syria.

Most of Russians are interested to know about the situation in Syria (84%), however only 22% keep track of the situation regularly. The general percentage is close to the January 2017 share (87%). Russians often qualify the situation in Syria as “war, military actions” (22%), “U.S. intervention” (8%), or “Russia’s attempt to establish order” (8%). According to 9%, the situation in the region has stabilized; 7% point to fight for power and territory.

The assessment dynamics have deteriorated over half a year: the share of those who report normalization of the situation was 58% in September 2017 and 38% in February 2018. Twenty-five percent see no changes; 17% consider the situation to be tense (an increase from 8%, September 2017).

The assessments of the Russian Air Force actions are still high (73% say Air Force accomplished their goals). Those who share this stance are mainly older respondents (83% of those aged 60+) rather than young Russians (61% among the 18-24-year-olds).

As to Russia’s involvement in the conflict, more than one-third of respondents support the current policy of the Russian government (34%). One-quarter (24%) say that Russia should slow down or act carefully. The share of those who think that Russia should withdraw and the share of those who think that Russia should act more actively in the region are almost similar (11% and 14% respectively).

Mentions of the Syria news in the Russian media from January 2015 to February 2018 were analyzed by Medialogia Company. Over this period Syria was mentioned 3,230,000 times. Most of mentions date to October 2015 (a visit of the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad to Moscow and negotiations with the Russian president Vladimir Putin; V. Putin highly assessed the Russian air force operation in Syria).  

The VCIOM-Sputnik survey was conducted on February 20-21, 2018. The survey involved 2,000 Russians aged 18 and over, and was carried out using stratified dual-frame random sample based on a complete list of landline and mobile phone numbers operating in Russia. The data were weighted according to selection probability and social and demographic characteristics. The margin of error at a 95% confidence level does not exceed 2.2%. In addition to sampling error, minor changes in question wording and different circumstances arising during the fieldwork can introduce bias into the survey.

The 2015-2016 results are based on household surveys.

The Russian media monitoring and analysis is carried out by the Medialogia Company using the Medialogia database of 43,500 sources such as television, radio, newspaper, magazines information agencies and online media. The period of study was January 1, 2015 – February 25, 2018. Data were calculated on 26.02.2018.

Note: Using materials from the site www.wciom.ru or wciom.com, as well as distributed by VCIOM, the reference to the source (or hyperlink for the electronic media) is obligatory!

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