INDEPENDENT RESEARCH AGENCY

The Day of Victory in the Great Patriotic War

In honor of the 70^th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War, Bashkirova and partners Independent research agency has made available the publication about our citizens’ feelings towards the anniversary of the Great Victory and this country’s keeping safe in the today volatile global environment. 

 

The absolute majority of the Russian people, i.e. 72%, have communicated they exactly celebrate The Victory Day instead of just considering it to be another day off (where the attitude dominates in relation of such national holidays like for e.g. The Day of Russia, June 12, and the National Day of Unity, celebrated on the 4^th of November). The memory of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War does not only stand for Russians’ Pride, but also for Sorrow about nearly thirty million of Soviet people, who perished in fighting for liberation of the Motherland from the aggressor’s forces.  Our contemporaries should not forget the high price, our nation paid for this Victory 70 years ago.

It’s of interest to analyze how our respondents feel about military and political threats to the national security of this country. Who, in Russians’ mind, are potential enemy and ally to our country?

  

The absolute most of Russians think the Russian government steps out as protector of the national security. They would most likely agree with the well-known statement made by Alexander III: «Russia has only two allies: the Russian Army and the Russian Navy».  The quarter of our people are willing to make support of our allies within CSTO, as even despite these forces being not that numerous compared to the Russian armed forces, the armies of Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan defense our borders on the potentially dangerous side, and in case of any threat they’re going to be the first who will face an enemy. Additionally the Belarusian army still remains one of the most numerous and best trained and armed armies of Europe.

It’s curious that a significant percentage of our people have pointed to cooperation of the Russian Federation with our Western neighbors – the former allies in the World War Two.

  

Most of Russians interviewed believe NATO, uniting our former allies within the anti-Hitler coalition in time of WWII, nowadays makes threat to this country. Half of Russians are convinced, that the North-Atlantic alliance makes significant threat, about a third of respondents say the threat is insignificant though being still there, and only 10% of our citizens don’t see any threat to Russia from its neighbors on the West.

Furthermore the overwhelming majority – 77% of our people, – are sure, Russia should have friendly relationship with all of its neighbors. About the same percentage, i.e. 75% are willing to cooperate with the EU (these are exactly the European states, being NATO members) on global issues of peace and security.  63% are of opinion that European states should offer support to Russia in the area of peace and security. Considering the present international instability, violation escalation in the Middle East and Northern Africa, Russians estimate international threat quite bias free, we think (please see our previous publications). And under certain conditions they are quite ready to normalize relationships with our Western neighbors, especially if these steps would considerably contribute to international security and help to fight effectively against international terrorism and jihad related groups, which directly threat our CSTO allies in Central Asia.

 

 

This study was being conducted in April 2015 based on all-Russia random route sample (18+) by means of face-to-face interviews in place of residence. Altogether 1500 respondents in 8 federal districts, 150 settlements, 200 sample points have been surveyed. The sample error makes up ± 2,5%, C.I. is 95%.  

 

 

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