Almost 70 percent of Russians believe that the United States often tries to put pressure on Russia, while only 17 percent think the U.S. treats Russia with respect, a recent Levada Center poll shows.
In addition, 67 percent of respondents last month agreed that the U.S. "is hypocritical in expecting other countries to adhere to international law without being accountable itself," Interfax reported Wednesday.
The percentage of Russians with a positive attitude toward the United States fell from 67 percent to 46 percent over the past 12 months, while the percentage with a negative attitude rose from 27 percent to 38 percent, the poll said.
Some 43 percent of respondents had a negative attitude toward U.S. foreign policy, 10 percent positive, and the remaining 47 percent could not give an immediate answer.
Recent U.S. political maneuvers, such as the Magnitsky Act, and disagreements about intervention in the Syrian conflict may have influenced responses.
A similar but less severe trend is observed in relation to the European Union: a decrease in positive sentiment from 67 percent to 63 percent as well as an 18 percent unchanged negative sentiment compared with a year ago.
The survey by the independent Levada Center covered 130 residential areas across 45 regions. The margin error did not exceed 3.4 percent.
Interestingly, a poll conducted by the state-run VTsIOM pollster in 2010 reported that Russians' attitudes toward the U.S. were warming, from 46 percent with a positive sentiment a year earlier to 59 percent.
The Levada Center is one of the largest nongovernmental research companies in Russia, conducting its own sociological and marketing research since 1987.
