WASHINGTON, December 6 (Sputnik) – Negative perception of the United States by the majority of Russians, revealed in a recent poll, is a direct consequence of US sanctions and media propaganda, experts have told Sputnik.
A recent poll by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center shows that 66 percent of the responded Russian citizens view the United States unfavourably. Some 49 percent of the respondents described US-Russia relations as "tense", 21 percent pointed to a chill between the two powers and 20 percent said their mutual attitude was outwardly hostile.
"The new low in Russian attitudes to the United States reflects the correct perception that the US government, in close coordination with the mainstream US media, is waging two kinds of warfare against the Russian Federation," research fellow of the American University in Moscow Gilbert Doctorow told Sputnik.
Doctorow pointed out that he was talking about an information war "which goes back to at least 2007 but has become especially vitriolic and damaging during 2014," and an economic war, aiming to "degrade the Russian economy, to isolate the country and to make both the general population and the top elites miserable, so as to foment regime change."
The scholar added that the "obvious facts of hostility" coming from the White House and the "muscle-flexing of NATO" close to Russia's borders have created fear and resentment among the population of Russia.
"It will lead to continuing support for the Putin administration as it continues to challenge the United States. It can be influenced only by regime change in Washington and a reversal of the anti-Russian policies," Doctorow concluded.
Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, a research fellow at the University of Ontario, also named anti-Russian sanctions and the overall Ukrainian crisis as the main reasons behind growing hostility toward the United States in Russia.
"The crisis in Ukraine and the anti-Russian sanctions have brought negative feelings about the United States to the highest point ever since 2008," the expert said, hinting at the 2008 armed conflict between Russia and Georgia.
He described the situation as "tragic", since an overwhelming majority of Russians surveyed in 1991 had a positive image of Washington, while only 1 percent saw relations as "very bad."
Relations between Russia and the United States have deteriorated over the crisis in Ukraine. Washington has accused Moscow of meddling into Ukraine's internal affairs by providing direct military and non-lethal aid to independence supporters, while a number of top Russian officials have said that the United States and the European Union orchestrated the February coup in Kiev.
Following the escalation of crisis in Ukraine, Washington and Brussels introduced several rounds of economic sanctions against Russia's defense, banking and energy sectors. In response, Moscow has imposed a ban on certain food imports from the United States, the European Union, and a number of other nations, which had supported the sanctions.
