section_path: Mutual perceptions by the countries' populations
section_name: Mutual perceptions by the countries' populations
paragraph_text: Mutual perceptions by the countries' populations
  
  A poll by the University of Maryland, College Park, released early July 2009 found that only 2 percent of Russians had "a lot of confidence" that U.S. president Barack Obama would do the right thing in world affairs. Russian media criticized the United States for pursuing an anti-missile system in Europe, for favoring NATO expansion and for supporting Georgia in its armed conflict with Russia in 2008.
  
  Prior to 2014, the Russian press expressed varying opinions of Russia–United States relations. Russian media treatment of America ranged from doctrinaire and nationalistic to very positive toward the United States and the West. In 2013, 51 percent of Russians had a favorable view of the U.S., down from 57 percent in 2010.
  
  The opinion polls taken by the independent Levada Center in January 2015, showed 81 percent of Russians tended to hold negative views of the U.S., a number that had nearly doubled over the previous 12 months and that was by far the highest negative rating since the center started tracking those views in 1988, as well as surpassing any time since the Stalin era, according to observers. This contrasts with only 7 percent of Russians in April 1990 who said they had bad or somewhat bad attitudes towards the U.S. Likewise, the figures published by Gallup in February 2015 showed a significant rise in anti-Russian sentiment in the U.S.: the proportion of Americans who considered Russia as a "critical military threat" had over the 12 months increased from 32 to 49 percent, and, for the first time in many years, Russia topped the list of America's perceived external enemies, ahead of North Korea, China and Iran, with 18 percent of U.S. residents putting Russia at the top of the list of the "United States' greatest enemy today". Public opinion polls taken by the Pew Research Center showed that favorable U.S. public opinion of Russia was at 22 percent in 2015. The most negative view of Russia was at 19 percent in 2014, and the most positive view at 49 percent in 2010 and 2011. The most negative view of the United States was at 15 percent in 2015, while the most positive view was at 61 percent in 2002.
  
  US public opinion regarding Russia has changed substantially over the past 25 years. A Gallup poll from 1992 to 2017 shows 62% of American respondents having a favorable view of Russia in 1992, and 29% having an unfavorable view. In 2017, 70% of American respondents had an unfavorable view of Russia, and 28% had a favorable view. A February 2023 Gallup poll found that 9% of Americans have a favorable view of Russia, and 51% view the military power of Russia as a critical threat, though this is down significantly from 59% a year prior. A poll conducted by YouGov in 2015 found that only 11% of Americans believed that the Soviet Union contributed most to the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II.
  
  A 2017 survey conducted by the Pew Research Center showed 41% of Russians had a positive view of the US, only one of two countries surveyed where positive perception for the US increased; 52% expressed a negative view. The same study also showed 53% of Russians had confidence in the U.S. president Donald Trump, compared to just 11% for former president Barack Obama.
  
  There has also been a change in whether Americans view Russia as an ally or a threat. In 1992, 44% of American respondents saw Russia to be friendly but not an ally, and 5% see them as a threat. In 2014, the Gallup poll reports that 21% of Americans see Russia as friendly but not an ally, and 24% of American respondents seeing them as a threat. This difference in how Americans view Russia has been attributed to the increasing lack of cooperation in the scientific field between the US and Russia, by some. Another perspective is the shift from ally to threat is due to the US being critical of Russia's aggression, especially with their aggression towards geographic neighbors, the United States being one of those neighbors, as it shares a common sea border with the Russian Federation and the US State of Alaska.
  
  The 2016 surveys independently conducted by the Chicago Council and Russia's Levada Center showed that mutual perceptions between Russians and Americans were at levels not seen since the Cold War, indicating considerable mutual distrust.
  
  U.S.–Russian relations have further deteriorated since 2016. A December 2017 survey conducted by the Chicago Council and its Russian partner, the Levada Center, showed that:
  
  Seventy-eight percent of Russians polled said the United States meddles "a great deal" or "a fair amount" in Russian politics, compared to 69 percent of Americans who say the same about Russian interference in U.S. politics.... The poll found that 31 percent of Russians said Moscow tried to influence U.S. domestic affairs in a significant way, compared to 55 percent of Americans who felt that their own government tried to do the same thing in Russia.... Only 31 percent of Americans say they hold a positive view of Russia, and 24 percent of Russians say the same of the United States.... Eighty-one percent of Russians said they felt the United States was working to undermine Russia on the world stage; 77 percent of Americans said the same of Russia.
  
  A Levada poll released in August 2018 found that 68% of Russian respondents believe that Russia needs to dramatically improve relations with the United States and other Western countries. According to The Moscow Times, "Russians increasingly view the United States in a positive light following a presidential" summit in Helsinki in July 2018. "For the first time since 2014, the number of Russians who said they had "positive" feelings towards the United States (42 percent) outweighed those who reported "negative" feelings (40 percent)."
  
  The 2019 poll independently conducted by the Chicago Council and Levada Center found that 85% of Russians and 78% of Americans say the United States and Russia are "more rivals than partners." The president of the Center for Citizen Initiatives, Sharon Tennison, stated in 2019, "In my 35 years of traveling throughout Russia, I've never before witnessed such a vast gap between what average Americans 'believe' about Russia and Russia's reality on ground today."
  
  A Levada poll released in February 2020 found that 80% of Russian respondents believe that Russia and the West should become friends and partners. However, only 42% of Russians polled said they had a positive view of the United States. Only 18% of Americans polled by Pew Research Center said they had a positive view of Russia. According to the Pew Research Center, "57% of Russians ages 18 to 29 see the U.S. favorably, compared with only 15% of Russians ages 50 and older." In 2019, only 20% of Russians viewed U.S. president Donald Trump positively. Only 14% of Russians expressed net approval of Donald Trump's foreign policies and actions. A 2024 Gallup poll shows that twenty-six percent of Americans consider Russia to be the United States' greatest enemy today, ranking it as the second-largest known enemy of the United States after China.