#7 - JRL 6525
Izvestia
No. 199
October 31, 2002
MORE THAN HALF OF RUSSIANS WILL APPROVE OF THE BOMBING OF CHECHEN BASES

The last opinion poll conducted by the Russian Center for Public Opinion and Market Research (VTsIOM) on October 25 to 28 has shown that the public mood with regard to the Chechen problem has greatly changed. For the first time in the past two years there are more people in favor of the use of force than those who come out for peace talks.

Georgy ILYICHEV

After the tragic events in Moscow the number of pacifists has dropped. In September one-third of the pollees came out for continuing the military operations in Chechnya and now their number increased to almost a half. Those who were for peace talks made up 57 percent, and now the figure is 44.

"That public opinion after the terrorist act would get much tougher towards Chechnya was obvious since the seizure of hostages, Vyacheslav Tikhonov, president of the Politika Foundation, told Izvestia.

"Another forecast has also come true - the terrorist act has done no harm to the Russian authorities. More likely the effect has been the opposite," he said.

The President's actions during the crisis have been approved by 85 percent of those polled, 82 percent responded "very positively" or "more positively than negatively" in regard to the commandos actions; and 76 percent highly assessed the activities of the media. The government's actions were approved by 72 percent.

"During the whole operation the government remained in the background, while the special forces were in the forefront," Nikonov said explaining the difference in the assessments. "The President responded promptly, he said all correct words and met with the people (the chiefs of the power agencies), with whom he should meet in such circumstances. The special operation to release the hostages was performed on a high level. Unfortunately there was a tragic miscalculation after the operation was completed, when it came to saving the people's lives. But hardly the President is responsible for that."

"One should not mix up the rating of the President's popularity and the assessment of his actions in this particular case," warns Leonid Sedov, a VTsIOM researcher. "When traditional questions were asked, Putin's rating went up as high as 77 percent. The negative assessment, which usually remains on the level of 20 percent, has gone down to 10 percent. It means that half of those who did not approve of Putin's actions have in this case approved them.

Our citizens have also approved of the special operation to release the hostages (a positive assessment was given by 84 percent of the respondents) and possible massive bombing of the Chechen terrorist bases. In general the principle solving the Chechen problem by force got a powerful public support. But the question is - how long the toughening of public sentiments can last?

"Now everything depends on the developments in Chechnya itself. The federal forces, no doubt, will take more intensive actions, and public opinion will take shape depending on their effectiveness," Sedov supposed cautiously.

Nikonov is more categorical: "There is always such a thing as tiredness of a war. The number of people supporting military actions is always greater at the start of a campaign than at the end of it. It is a general tendency. On the other hand, such terrorist acts may change mass consciousness for a long period of time. The events on September 11 in the U.S. have consequences that will be seen for several years. But the consequences of the terrorist act in Moscow, in my view, will be smaller. The specific of our consciousness is that it cannot be concentrated on one thing for a long time, even on such a tragedy."