Americans’ negative views of Russia have reached levels not seen since the fall of the Soviet Union, according to a new survey released by the Gallup pollster Wednesday.
Relations between the two countries have plummeted to Cold War-era levels after Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 and was accused of interfering in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
According to Gallup’s results, 52 percent of Americans see Russia as a “critical threat” to U.S. interests and Russia’s unfavorability ratings reached a new high of 73 percent.
Meanwhile, Russia displaced North Korea as the country that most respondents called America’s “greatest enemy” — at 32 percent. In last year’s poll, only 19 percent of respondents called Russia America’s greatest foe, compared to 51 percent who said the same about North Korea.
“Each of these negative perceptions of Russia marks a record high in Gallup's trends,” the pollster said.
Gallup conducted the poll among 1,016 Americans living in all 50 states between Feb. 1 and Feb. 10.
Conversely, more than two-thirds of Russian respondents named the U.S. as Russia’s biggest enemy in a survey conducted by the independent Levada Center last year.
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