Most Russians believe Syria military campaign achieved its goal – poll

Almost three-fourths of Russians (73%) believe that the country’s Aerospace Forces have managed to attain their objectives in Syria, a poll carried out by the All-Russia Public Opinion Research Center uncovered on Tuesday.
“The assessment of the Russian Aerospace Forces’ actions in Syria is still high – 73% of citizens say they have reached the goals,” the pollster said.
Most Russians (84%) show interest in the situation in Syria, but just 22% regularly keep a watchful eye on the events.
According to the survey, more than one-third of the respondents back Moscow’s policy in Syria, while 14% call for Russia to take more active steps in the region. Nearly a quarter of Russians (24%) believe that Moscow should “slow down” and act more carefully, while another 11% of those polled say Russia should stop being a party to the struggle.
Over the past six months, Russians have started being more skeptical about a settlement to the conflict, the pollster said.
“If back in September 2017 some 58% of respondents spoke about normalizing the situation, by February 2018 that had come to 38%, while 25% see neither changes for the better nor for the worse,” it said. Some 17% say tensions are escalating in Syria, an 8% increase from September 2017.
The nation’s leading polling agency conducted the survey on February 20-21 based on phone interviews with 2,000 respondents. The margin of error does not exceed 2.2% at the 95% confidence level.
TASS