Russians do not believe in the possibility of a Euromaidan in Russia, according to a survey conducted by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM).
76% of Russians believe that such protests in the country "are impossible in principle". Such a point of view largely adheres to higher-income respondents (80%) rather than poorer (71%) and less educated (65%). Only 15% of respondents believe that this can happen in Russia.
94% of Russians do not want a Euromaidan in their country. And only 2% take the opposite position.
The survey was conducted in late February among 1.6 thousand people in 132 settlements of Russia. The error does not exceed 3.5%, RIA Novosti reports.
The deputy head of the Editorial Council of Vestnik Kavkaza, the Director General of the Institute for Caspian Cooperation, Sergey Mikheyev, said that the Ukrainian Maidan has shown so bright a negative example, that "no one has a desire to repeat it". "Look, the Maidan slogans were very similar to the Bolotnaya slogans: "Let's make a revolution, we will go through the details later". The Maidan had slogans just like that: the main thing is to dump Yanukovych, and things will sort themselves out, life will be beautiful. In the end it turned out that the state is bursting at the seams, in fact, it is on the verge of collapse, civil war broke out, the economic crisis and so on. Such an example was so significant for Russian citizens that their attitude to the Maidan, and to the possibility of a Maidan in Russia, is sharply negative," he explained.
The director of the Center for Political Information, Alexei Mukhin, explained the unanimity of Russians. "The cause is the picture that came from the Maidan a year ago, the so-called Euromaidan in Ukraine, and the information that is coming from Ukraine today. It is clear that the Ukrainian society is strongly deformed by the Euromaidan, and, in fact, sociologists have documented the defensive reaction of Russian society to such incidents," he said.Political analyst Alexei Poltorakov, in his turn, drew attention to the difference in the mentality of the citizens of Russia and Ukraine. "The Russian mentality has the effect that the slogan "First think about your country, and then about yourself" is extrapolated to the economic dimension. That is, those people who went to the Maidan in Ukraine, middle managers for example, will not go into the streets in Russia, they are too tied by loans, bonds and other debt. Again, the principle question for Russia is to remove bad officials, install good officials, and everything will be fine. Ukraine has a different mentality, the joke about the plumber who was summoned to the KGB, and he says that the system must be changed, is relevant for us. This is a fundamental difference," Poltorakov said.
The director of the Center for Political Information, Alexei Mukhin, explained the unanimity of Russians. "The cause is the picture that came from the Maidan a year ago, the so-called Euromaidan in Ukraine, and the information that is coming from Ukraine today. It is clear that the Ukrainian society is strongly deformed by the Euromaidan, and, in fact, sociologists have documented the defensive reaction of Russian society to such incidents," he said.
Political analyst Alexei Poltorakov, in his turn, drew attention to the difference in the mentality of the citizens of Russia and Ukraine. "The Russian mentality has the effect that the slogan "First think about your country, and then about yourself" is extrapolated to the economic dimension. That is, those people who went to the Maidan in Ukraine, middle managers for example, will not go into the streets in Russia, they are too tied by loans, bonds and other debt. Again, the principle question for Russia is to remove bad officials, install good officials, and everything will be fine. Ukraine has a different mentality, the joke about the plumber who was summoned to the KGB, and he says that the system must be changed, is relevant for us. This is a fundamental difference," Poltorakov said.
