For the third year in a row, Russians are quite proud of their military.
This conclusion comes from a new poll released by the independent Levada Center on May 4. According to the survey, 75 percent of Russians are proud to be citizens of Russia. Their top three sources of pride are the country's natural resources (40 percent), its history (40 percent) and its armed forces (37 percent).
On the whole, this picture has remained largely the same over the last five years. But there is one key change: Since 2015, the military has outpaced both Russian culture and athletic achievements to take third place in the ranking.
Several other sources of national pride listed in the survey have seen declines. In contrast, the number of Russians proud of their nation's "fighting capacity" has shot up since Russia's annexation of Crimea and the start of the war in eastern Ukraine, according to the poll.
This trend directly corresponds with a rise in the number of Russians who are proud of Russia, which jumped from 53 percent in 2013 to 69 percent in 2014. It has roughly remained at this level since then.
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