86.6% of Russians allow and support a potential attack on the territory of the countries of the European Union, including: Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Slovakia and others. These are the results of the sociological survey received by the company “Active Group”.
75.5% of Russians approve of the idea of an armed invasion of the next country and believe that Poland should become that country. This is a logical continuation of the “military special operation of the Russian Federation”, according to the respondents.
Moreover, according to the survey, 75% of respondents to some extent allow the use of nuclear weapons by the government of their country.
[the_ad id=”301″]
It is worth nothing that 13.4% of Russian residents have a negative attitude towards an armed invasion of other countries. 46% of respondents are absolutely sure that the Russian government should attack the EU, and 40.6% suggest an acceptable expansion of hostilities.
The three countries that, according to a sociological survey, will become the next victims of the Russian attack: Poland (75.5% of respondents), the Baltic countries, including Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia (41%), as well as Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary (39, 6%). During the survey, respondents had the opportunity to choose several countries.
Only 25.5% of Russians have a categorically negative attitude towards the use of nuclear weapons. Among those polled, 40.3% consider a nuclear attack absolutely acceptable, and 34.3% will support such a decision by the Russian authorities to one degree or another.
Russian public opinion can be a certain marker for the Kremlin’s potential actions for the world community.
“The general impression of the employees from the survey is that the Russians who agreed to communicate with the interviewers are aggressive towards not only Ukraine, but also the European Union. Respondents either refuse to communicate after learning the topic of the interview, or declare their readiness to support and approve further Russian incursions into other countries,” comments Andrey Eremenko, founder of the Active Group research company.
Sociologists of the Ukrainian company “Active Group” wondered how aggressive Russian society is. To do this, a telephone survey (using the Viber messenger) was conducted according to a formalized methodology (a representative sample according to the subject of the federation, gender and age of the respondent). When compiling the questions, the wordings obligatory for the Russian environment were used. So, instead of “invasion” and “war”, the poll used the word “special operation”, the Ukrainian security forces were called “Nazis”, etc. Of course, instead of “in Ukraine” it was said “in Ukraine”.
To the question “should the Russian Federation force other countries to stop supporting the Nazis in Ukraine by military means?” Only 13.4% of respondents answered negatively, 86.6% support military aggression against other countries in one way or another: 40.6% unequivocally support it, and 40.6% are not sure.
[the_ad id=”301″]
In order to find out which military aggression against which countries the Russians consider acceptable, the question was asked: “In your opinion, on the territory of which countries should the Russian Federation expand its influence (including by military means)?”. It turned out that most often, aggression is allowed against countries that “were part of the USSR.” This option was supported by 40.3% of all or 48.9% of those who decided on the answer. 33.3% of the respondents (40.4% of those who have decided) allow “expansion of influence by military means” to the countries of the Warsaw Pact (except Poland). Russia’s attack on Poland is allowed by 32.9% of Russians (39.9% of those who have decided). 20.8% of respondents (25.3% of those who have decided) allow military aggression against the “EU countries”, and 12.5% (15.2% of all) consider it necessary to “expand influence by military means” to the whole world. It is noteworthy that only 4.6% of the respondents wanted to “expand their influence” in the US (5.6% of those who decided). But only 1.4% of respondents said that the Russian Federation should not expand its influence, and another 17.6% could not answer the question.
The question was also asked “In which countries should the Russian Federation continue the military special operation after the denazification of Ukraine to protect its legitimate interests? (Multiple answers)”. In the event of a successful completion of the “military special operation” in Ukraine, 48.6% of the polled Russians (75.5% of those who have decided) believe that Poland should be next. And 26.4% of respondents (41% of those who decided) said that the Baltic countries should be next. Other countries of the Warsaw Pact (Bulgaria, former Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania) named 25.5% (39.6% of those who decided). The option “In one of the other NATO countries” was chosen by 2.8% (4.3% of those who decided). 35.6% failed to answer.
It also turned out that 3/4 of Russians admit that their country will use nuclear weapons under certain conditions. So, to the question “Do you allow the Russian Federation, in order to protect its legitimate interests, provided that Vladimir Putin receives information about the threat of using such weapons against the Russian Federation, would use nuclear weapons in a limited way?”, 40.3% of respondents answered “ YES” and another 34.3% expressed doubt “maybe yes, maybe no”, which means readiness to support such a decision under certain conditions. And only 25.5% answered unambiguously “NO”.
The survey was conducted from March 11-14, 2022 using the CATI method (telephone interview using a computer). A total of 1557 respondents were interviewed. The theoretical error at a confidence level of 0.95 does not exceed 2.5%. A feature of this project was that the calls were made using the Viber messenger, and the interviewers did not introduce themselves as saying that they were calling from Ukraine and at the same time used temporary numbers for calls (the numbers were purchased through virtual number sales services).
