05 August 2009, 19:00
VTsIOM: 86 percent of Russians support Russia's actions in South-Ossetian war
The overwhelming majority of Russian citizens - 86 percent - believe that Russia was right, or sooner right than wrong, during the war in South Ossetia in August 2008. This data was presented at a press conference held in the press centre of the RIA "Novosti" by Olga Kamenchuk, Director for Communications of the All-Russian Centre for Studying Public Opinion (known as VTsIOM), who summed up the results of the recent poll.
During the press conference "South Ossetia, Abkhazia… who's next?", the results of the study held by the VTsIOM by the anniversary of the Georgian-South-Ossetian conflict were presented.
The studies were conducted on July 26 in 140 dwelling settlements of 42 regions, territories and republics of Russia. In total, 1600 respondents were polled.
As explained by Ms Kamenchuk, according to interrogation data, most Russian citizens believe that the August conflict was kindled either by Georgia (56 percent), or "global off-stage players", the US governments or special services (15 percent) (1 more percent of respondents lay guilt on the NATO, United Nations and authorities of Ukraine). Only 5 percent think that the reason of the conflict was in ambitions of its participants, 3 percent blame the authorities of South Ossetia of unleashing the "August war", and 2 percent - Russian leaders.
The overwhelming majority - 86 percent - believe that in August 2008 Russia acted correctly or sooner correctly than not. And only 7 percent of the respondents find the actions of Russian leadership wrong.
For comparison, Olga Kamenchuk has cited the outcomes of a similar poll, conducted five years ago, in 2004. Then, rendering of military support of South Ossetia in case of a war there was supported by ten times less respondents - 6 percent.
Also, according to the sociologist, the war in South Ossetia resulted in a growing number of supporters of the right to self-determination over those who stand for the principle of inviolability of frontiers.
Author: Semen Charnyj Source: CK correspondent
