Polls: Russia’s view of Ukraine improves slightly.
While the Kremlin has stoked anti-Ukrainian resentment in recent years, its propaganda machine may have softened a bit ahead of Ukraine’s Jan. 17 presidential election. Consequently, Russians are starting to warm up to their Slavic brothers ever so slightly. But they remain deeply split over whether to regard Ukraine positively or negatively.
A poll from the Moscow-based Levada Center on Sept. 18-21 showed that 46 percent of Russians have a “good or very good” attitude towards Ukraine, while almost as many Russians – 44 percent – see Ukrainians in “bad or very bad” light, while another 10 percent are undecided on the issue.
Ukrainians regard their northern neighbors more warmly. A parallel study by Kyiv’s International Institute of Sociology showed that 88 to 93 percent of Ukrainians have consistently held a positive view of Russia, despite repeated spats between leaders of the two nations.
Experts say the results are not surprising. “There is no state anti-Russia propaganda in Ukraine,” said Oleksandr Paliy, an expert at the Kyiv-based Foreign Policy Research Institute, a think tank within the Diplomatic Academy of Ukraine.
In contrast, Russians are markedly more hostile towards Ukraine, in no small part due to state- orchestrated propaganda campaign, said Aleksey Grazhdankin, deputy director of Moscow’s Levada Center.
“The attitude towards Ukraine is the result of state propaganda,” Grazhdankin said. “Russia’s information environment is a mono-polar world with only one point of view. The standard is established by the state power, and is eventually followed by the majority.”
Grazhdankin expects further improvement in Russian attitudes towards Ukraine, noting that Kremlin leaders appear to be taking a cautious attitude until after the Jan. 17 presidential election. Some also detect a tilt towards Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko as the official campaign kicks off on Oct. 19.
But tensions can flare at any time between the neighbors – over any number of issues.
Many are watching to see if Moscow will blatantly interfere in the presidential vote by backing a candidate, as it did in 2004, when then-Russian President Vladimir Putin’s support for Victor Yanukovych backfired badly.
Grazhdankin doesn’t think Russian leaders will make the same mistake in 2010 and will not overtly back a candidate. Rather, he said the Kremlin would send warning signals to all candidates, making clear what Russia expects from them. “It is unfavorable for Russia to worsen relations with the country before a new president is elected,” Grazhdankin said.
But the bilateral relationship is in need of repairing, many on both sides say.
The percentage of Russians with a good attitude towards Ukrainians has remained below 55 percent since March 2008. By comparison, at least 80 percent of Russians shared a “good or very good” attitude to Belarus during the same time.
Levada Center’s polls have consistently showed that Russians’ attitude to Ukraine worsened every time top Russia’s officials made radical statements or took drastic actions against Ukraine.
Anti-Ukrainian sentiment seriously worsened among the Russians after the August 2008 war between Russia and Georgia. Russian media repeatedly accused Ukraine of supplying arms to the Caucasus country. Russian media also made repeated and unsubstantiated claims that Ukrainian conscripts fought alongside Georgian soldiers and against Russia’s army. Ukrainian President Victor Yushchenko added fuel to the fire by siding openly with Georgian counterpart, Mikheil Saakashvili. In a poll conducted soon afterwards, only 37.3 of Russians viewed Ukrainians in a good light, while 52.6 percent said their attitude was “bad.”
Russia’s attitude towards the United States, which also sided with Georgia, experienced an all-time low just after the Russian-Georgian war. In September 2008, only 23 percent said their attitude towards the USA was “positive or very positive.” Previously, attitudes towards America dipped sharply in the spring of 1999 when NATO forces conducted a military operation in Yugoslavia and in the spring of 2003, when the United States launched its military attack on Iraq. Both moves were widely reported by the Russian press in a negative manner and condemned by Kremlin officials.
Many think that Russian propaganda has tempered its virulent anti-Americanism, at least for the moment, until the Kremlin leadership decides whether U.S. President Barack Obama will bring an improvement in relations over the hostility that existed during ex-U.S. President George Bush.
For Ukraine, natural gas wars affect Russian opinions. The previous dip in attitude (with 29 percent viewing Ukraine positively and 62 percent negatively) took place in January during Russia’s three-week cutoff. “Ukraine was described by majority of Russia’s media as Russian gas robber and it seriously spoiled Russians’ attitude to it,” Grazhdankin explained.
Pro-NATO rhetoric, attempts to have the 1932-33 Communist-induced famine recognized as genocide against the Ukrainian nation, and attempts to honor the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) that fought against the Communists and Nazis during and after World War II – all these issues have hurt Russians’ view of Ukraine, experts said.
So why do President Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin bash Ukraine so hard?
Victor Chumak, director for political programs at the Kyiv-based International Center for Policy Studies, said: “Ukraine is a country where economic and political competitiveness is cultivated,” and such a neighbor is dangerous for Russia’s leadership because it offers an alternative to their “soft authoritarian regime.”
“The image of Ukraine as an enemy,” deep in crisis and worse off than Russia is pushed on Russian media to convince citizens that there is “no better alternative to their own regime,” Chumak added.
Grazhdankin agrees. He said that by attacking Ukraine and portraying it as worse off than Russia, Moscow’s leaders distract their citizens from the government’s own inability to cope with internal problems.
