MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Over a third of Republican voters rated the American President Barack Obama as more of a threat to the United States than Russian President Vladimir Putin, an online poll held by Ipsos/Reuters showed Monday.
Just a quarter of the 2,849 US residents asserting that they were Republicans called Putin an imminent threat compared with 34 percent who consider Obama to be more dangerous. Some 23 percent called Syrian President Bashar Assad a threat citing his alleged use of chlorine gas and barrel bombs against his own citizens during the ongoing civil war.
In a February poll held by US think tank Pew Research Center some 70 percent of those Americans polled had a negative opinion of Putin, with four in 10 expressing their view as very unfavorable.
Putin’s ratings in the United States dropped swiftly after Crimea rejoined Russia in 2014 and the conflict in eastern Ukraine became violent. The West accused Moscow of annexing the peninsula and meddling in Ukrainian affairs.
Russia has repeatedly denied all the allegations.
