SI | STOP-Imperialism.com

Over 80 percent of Russian nationals consider the current standing of Russia-US relations to be negative, whereas over 30 percent hope they can improve in the short-term perspective and 15 percent expect the ties to worsen, a daily poll by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM), obtained by reporters, revealed on Monday.

The special point index for the assessment of Russia-US relations, developed by VCIOM, dropped by 23 points over last month and it currently amounts to minus 68 points.

In March, 71 percent of respondents gave a negative assessment to the state of the bilateral relations between Moscow and Washington.

According to the poll, 30 percent of respondents consider that the war between the two states is possible or already underway, while only 16 percent say a direct military conflict is absolutely unlikely. In March 2014, only 20 percent of Russians said that the war was possible.

The poll further revealed that Russians’ attitude toward US President Donald Trump has worsened over the past month. The worsening comes after April 6 US strikes on a Syrian airfield of Ash Sha’irat, which Washington launched in response to a reported chemical use incident in the country’s province of Idlib.

“Today, Russians have worse attitude toward US President Donald Trump than a month ago — the share of negative assessments raised from 7 percent to 39 percent, while the share of positive assessments decreased from 38 percent to 13 percent,” the poll detailed.

Of this group of respondents, a total of 31 percent distrust Trump, 19 percent are disappointed with him and 29 percent are indifferent to his personality.

The survey took place on April 11-12 and involved 1,200 respondents.

The United States and Russia are currently trying to normalize mutual bilateral relations, which were damaged amid differing stances on the Syrian crisis. Both Russian and US officials have recently called the bilateral relations worst in decades.