Putin Losing Public Support On Key Issues

According to a Pew Research Center survey released last week, Russians still have a high level of confidence in President Putin's ability to do the right thing regarding world affairs. Despite his high overall approval rating, however, Putin is actually losing public support on many key issues. Support for his handling of relations with Ukraine and the EU have dropped 20 and 15 percentage points respectively since 2015. Russians are also increasingly dissatisfied with the way their president is handing relations with the United States. In 2015, 85 percent of people were satisfied with Putin's handling of relations between Moscow and Washington and in 2017, that has fallen to 73 percent.