Residents of the Crimea and Sevastopol strongly support the Crimean reunification with Russia. The federal authorities’ approval ratings are high.

MOSCOW, July 12, 2016.  Russian Public Opinion Research Centre (VCIOM) presents the data of the survey describing how Crimean residents assess the performance of the federal and regional authorities.

As two years ago, an overwhelming majority of the Crimean and Sevastopol residents would vote for the reunification with the Russian Federation if a new referendum took place. Those who gave such answers are 95% in the Crimea and 94% in Sevastopol. Two percent would oppose this idea; and 3% and 4% (respectively) remained undecided.

The Sevastopol residents highly assess the performance of the Russian president Vladimir Putin: 97% and 98%, respectively, approve of the Russian president’s work. Remarkably, an overwhelming majority (80-82%) assess the presidential work in the most positive way.

Most of the residents of the Crimean Republic (76%) are satisfied with the situation in their region; one-third of them (34%) are confident of that, and this share is increasing - 45% of those who are aged over 60 share this stance. Forty-two percent of respondents tend to give positive assessments. Those who think so are mainly people aged 45-59 (47%) and those aged 25-34 (46%).  Seventeen percent of the republic residents are dissatisfied: almost one-quarter of the young respondents (aged 18-24) and those aged 35-44 assess the situation in the region negatively (23% and 28%).

Two-thirds of the residents of the region (72%) noticed positive changes. They are mainly young people (82%) and those from the older age group (79%). Fifteen percent report to have mentioned no changes over the recent two years. The biggest share of those who share this stance is among residents aged 25-34 (24%).

Eighty-five percent of the Crimean population and 81% of Sevastopol residents express their trust towards Sergey Aksenov, the current leader of the republic; 37% and 39% of them, respectively, express the highest degree of trust.  The share of those who assess his abilities to handle his duties as “definitely good” and “likely good” is 81% (per each group).

The assessments of the effectiveness of the authorities to combat corruption in the Crimea have substantially improved over half a year. In July 2016, more than half of respondents (50%) report that they agree with the measures taken by the regional administration, whereas in February 2015 only one-third of the residents (34%) admitted that. The percentage of those who thought that the authorities were carrying out only separate measures against corruption was 46% in 2015; today this share makes up one-quarter (27%). According to 4% of respondents, at the moment the authorities fail to tackle this problem; this share has also decreased (9% in 2015).

The VCIOM opinion polls were carried put in the Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol, on June 30 – July 4, 2016, in the framework of the media project “Mirror of Crimea”.  The sample is representative of the population of the Russian Federation subject aged 18 and over, according to sex, age, education, type of settlement. The survey was carried out using stratified dual-frame random sample based on the complete list of telephone numbers operating in Russia; a total number of 1000 respondents in the Republic of Crimea and 1000 respondents in Sevastopol were interviewed via landline and cell phones. The margin of error with 95% confidence interval does not exceed 3.1%, per each survey.

Note: Using materials from the websites 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.