How Russians view sanctions

By Vestnik Kavkaza

In late summer VCIOM conducted a public opinion poll devoted to the attitude of the Russian citizens toward the EU anti-Russian sanctions and Russian response sanctions. The experts asked Russians whether they were ready to reject certain imported products which were mentioned on the sanctions list or could be included in it in the future for the continuation of the foreign political course chosen by the Russian leadership.

“We asked a question on whether our citizens are ready to reject American Coca-Cola to further provide the current policy and guarantee response sanctions. It turned out that almost two thirds of respondents don’t buy Coca-Cola at all; 27% buy it, but are ready to reject Coke; and only 7% are not ready to reject the Coca-Cola which they buy for continuation of the current Russian foreign policy,” Pavel Danilin, the Director General of the Center of Political Analysis said.

As for statistics on certain groups of citizens on the issue, it turned out that the most “patriotic” part of the population are officials – 100% of them are ready to reject Coca-Cola.

Speaking about response sanctions, the Director General of the Center of Political Analysis noted that in general Russian society supported the launching of counter-sanctions. “39% answered “Yes, of course” to the question “Was it necessary for Russia to launch counter-sanctions?”; 33% said “Probably yes.” So there are more than two thirds of positive answers. Only 12% answered “Probably not.” And 6% - “Of course not.” Thus, there are 12% of doubting people. The figures are quite telling. Russian society is absolutely consolidated on the issue that when sanctions are launched against us, we should respond,” Danilin concluded.

The public opinion poll’s list of products included Polish apples, Spanish fruit and ham, Norwegian herring and salmon, Latvian milk products, German beer, Italian Parmesan, Ukrainian bacon, Japanese sushi and Australian beef. 1600 respondents from 42 Russian regions took part in the survey.