Putin holds trust of 58% Russians

Russian President Vladimir Putin is currently trusted by 58 per cent of the country’s citizens, a fresh poll by Russia’s Public Opinion Foundation (FOM) showed on Friday.
A week ago, the number was 55 per cent.
According to the findings, 31 per cent of respondents feel distrust toward the president, while another 11 per cent were not able to give a definite answer.
In addition, 60 per cent approved of Putin’s performance in office, while 25 per cent disagreed.
Another 15 per cent could not say for sure.
The survey was conducted from August 21-23 among 4,000 Russian adults.
The margin of error does not exceed 1.9 per cent.
Trust in Putin had sunk as the public was unimpressed with his performance in response to a series of shocks that hit the Russian economy in the first quarter of 2020.
It slumped 10 percentage points between January and May to a multi-year low of 25%, according to independent pollster, the Levada Center, down from a peak of 59% in November 2017.
Putin has been caught between a rock and a hard place as he tries to avoid responsibility for the state’s poor response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) epidemic in Russia.
The pandemic in Russia has resulted in the third highest number of infections in the world (387,623 confirmed cases and 4,374 deaths, as of May 30, according to John Hopkins), behind only Brazil and the U.S..
Putin pushed off responsibility for dealing with the epidemic to the regional governors and remained isolated and aloof for most of April and May while the entire country was put on lockdown.
The country is used to seeing Putin as a man of action, ending the chaos of the Yeltsin-era, facing down the U.S. sanctions and winning a war against terrorists in Syria.
The new Putin, sitting alone in his office in front of a bank of TV screens holding online meetings, is a new image that sits less well with the population.
However, trust in Putin is still well ahead of trust in any other politician.
The next most trusted politician remains Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, but even he has seen his rating almost halve from 23% in November 2017 to 14% as of May 2020.