A majority of Russians don’t trust Putin to solve corruption. But they trust him to run the country.
At a time when public anger over government corruption has led to Russia’s most widespread protests in years, fewer than half of Russians are confident in President Vladimir Putin’s efforts to rein in crooked officials, according to a survey released Tuesday.
The survey, by the Washington-based Pew Research Center, finds Russians generally confident in their country’s direction, enthusiastic about Moscow’s growing say in world affairs and increasingly sanguine about the economy. A whopping 87 percent of those surveyed said they trust Putin to represent their country’s interests on the global stage.
But approval of the job Putin is doing to eliminate corruption has fallen over the past two years, from 62 percent to 49 percent, according to the center, which conducted face-to-face interviews with 1,002 Russians between February and April.