The data published today by the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM) say that the majority of Russians expect Russian-Georgian relations to improve after the presidential elections in that country and George Margvelashvili's victory.
"Most Russians expect that after the election of the new president of Georgia bilateral relations will improve (56%). Such forecasts are made primarily by 35 to 44-year-old people (63%) and Communist Party supporters (65%). Negative expectations were expressed by only 7% of respondents. 23% of respondents believe that with the election of a new head of Georgia our relations will not change", RIA Novosti quotes VtsIOM.
According to sociologists, the Russians assess bilateral relations to "less than three points": 2.74 points on a five-grade scale. According to Russian citizens, Georgia's accession to NATO will affect Russian-Georgian relations. The impact, according to almost half of the respondents (44%), will be negative. Only 13 % believe the opposite. And only 28% of respondents believe that it will not affect Russian-Georgian relations.
"The consequences of Georgia's accession to the European Union, from the viewpoint of respondents, will be less tangible: 36% believe that this will not affect the relationship. Others point out to the increasingly negative impact of this step (29% ) rather than to its positive effect ( 17%). The deterioration of relations tend to be expected by metropolitan residents (42%)”, the center adds.
The initiative Russian opinion poll was conducted on November 2-3 among 1.3 thousand people in 130 villages of 42 regions of Russia. The statistical error does not exceed 3.4 %.
