You're reading: Poll: Russians see Ukraine among its top enemies

Two-years of relentless anti-Ukrainian propaganda from the Kremlin has had a corrosive effect on ordinary Russians’ attitude to their formerly friendly neighbor, a Ukrainian sociologist has said, commenting on a new poll.

Ukraine was ranked as Russia’s second-worst enemy globally,
after the United States, according to a poll conducted in May by the Levada Center,
a Russian non-governmental polling and sociological organization.

The share of Russians seeing hostility coming from Ukraine
is growing. The recent survey showed some 48 percent of Russians consider
Ukraine an enemy, against from 37 percent in 2015 and 30 percent in 2014.

The change in attitude is the result of Kremlin propaganda,
sociologists believe. “Russia has created a neo-Soviet ideology with neo-imperialistic
slogans. If Ukraine does not want to be a part of the (Russian) empire, then it
is its enemy,” said Yevhen Holovakha, deputy director of the Institute of
Social Studies at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.

Russia’s foremost enemy is the United States, according to 72
percent of Russians, the study says, reflecting Cold War antagonism between the
Soviet Union and the United States. “In Soviet times, the propaganda said that
there were two super powers – the Soviet Union and the United States, which competed
with each other. Other countries were satellites,” Holovakha said, adding that in
Russian propaganda nowadays Ukraine is shown as Washington’s satellite, which
is why many Russians consider it to be a country hostile to Russia. In
addition, 62 percent of Russians believe the European Union is also hostile
towards their homeland.

In 2015, only one percent of Russians named Turkey as a
hostile state, but this rapidly changed after last November a Turkish Air Force
fighter shot down a Russian military jet near the Syrian-Turkish border, after
which relations between the two countries nose-dived. Now 29 percent of
Russians consider Turkey, formerly a favorite vacation destination with Russians,
an enemy.

On the flip side, Belarus, Kazakhstan, China and Syria are
ranked by Russians as being among the most friendly countries towards Russia.

The Kremlin paints Ukraine as an enemy to distract Russian
society from their country’s social, economic and political problems,
sociologists believe. “While there is such an enemy (as Ukraine), the current
Russian political regime can be sure of their future,” Holovakha said.

“This is a purely ideological war, and as soon as the ideological
aim changes in a few months, we will see a different attitude towards
Ukrainians,” he said, adding that another factor is that many Russians still view
Ukraine as part of the Russian empire. “It will take a long time and much effort
from Ukrainian and European leadership to change the (Kremlin’s) imperialistic
attitude.”