Russians’ trust in state institutions has fallen during the coronavirus outbreak while their sense of self-reliance is up, according to poll results cited by the RBC news website Tuesday.
The results were published nine weeks into a nationwide lockdown to slow the spread of Covid-19 that has caused significant damage to an economy already hurt by a devalued currency and an oil-price crash. Small and medium businesses have criticized state economic support measures as modest and authorities have resisted public pressure to further loosen the purse strings.
Some 61% of Russians surveyed by the Moscow-based Online Market Intelligence (OMI) researcher and the Platforma social forecasting center said they felt less confident that the government would come to their aid during the pandemic, RBC reported. Only 10% said they had more confidence that it would help them.
The survey’s respondents also reported lower levels of confidence in state media (54%), Russian healthcare (43%), the stability of their employers (42%) and people in general (24%). Public organizations were the only institutions to see an increase in trust from the public (22%).
Meanwhile, 28% of Russians said they felt stronger confidence in themselves, RBC said, a sign of increasing self-reliance.
OMI and Platforma surveyed 1,000 respondents over the age of 18 in cities with populations over 100,000. RBC did not indicate when the respondents were polled.
Meanwhile, President Vladimir Putin’s disapproval rating inched upward from 33% in April to 34% in May in a survey conducted by the independent Levada Center pollster, which published its results Tuesday. His approval rating held steady at 59%.
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