World views of Putin and Russia fall to record lows amid Ukraine war

Global perceptions of Vladimir Putin have fallen to all-time lows according to a poll from the Pew Research Center which discovered that most of the adults it surveyed viewed the Russian President unfavorably and didn’t think would do the right thing in global affairs. 

Putin’s global popularity has undoubtedly taken a major hit since he made the decision to invade Ukraine, but measuring just how the world feels about the Russian President after nearly a year-and-a-half of conflict hasn’t been easy for pollsters and statisticians. 

Luckily, the Pew Research Center has put in the leg work to find out what a subset of the world’s population thinks about Putin in mid-2023 and the public opinion polling group has just released its findings from a 24-country survey on Russia’s global image. 

Pew noted that a median of 82% of adults it surveyed from across the world responded that they had an unfavorable view of Russia while a similar number of respondents said they had little confidence that Putin would do the right thing when it came to world affairs. 

“Consistent with views of the country overall, confidence in Russian President Vladimir Putin to do the right thing regarding world affairs is overwhelmingly low,” the Pew Research Center reported. 

How overwhelmingly low was Putin’s ranking? Well, a median of 87% of adults said they had “not too much or no confidence at all,” in his ability to handle world affairs. 

Putin's global confidence contrasted starkly with the rankings given to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky by respondents, numbers which showed people from across the world thought the embattled world leader could be trusted to do the right thing in global affairs. 

While only 11% of people had confidence in Putin’s ability to handle world affairs, 51% of respondents said they had confidence in Zelensky, though opinions on the Ukrainian President varied and fewer than half of people had confidence in him in 10 nations. 

However, the Pew Research Center report noted that with all things considered, “confidence in Zelensky largely aligns with views of U.S. President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.”

“A median of 54% have confidence in Biden on the world stage, 50% have confidence in Macron and 49% say the same of Scholz,” the Pew report added. 

Breakdowns of Putin’s unpopularity show what one would expect if they’ve been paying attention to the conflict in Ukraine. For example, Poland has been extremely critical of Russia’s invasion and 98% of Polish respondents said they had no confidence in Putin. 

On the other hand, India has taken a far more middle-of-the-road path with Russia, and that was reflected in the confidence numbers recorded by the Pew Research Center. 59% of Indian respondents said they had confidence in Putin, which was up 17 points from Pew’s 2019 poll results. 

Poles also had the most unfavorable opinion of Russia with 98% of adults responding that they had a negative view of the country while Indians had the highest favorable views of Russia with 57% of respondents reporting a “favorable opinion.”

Interestingly, the report found that confidence in Putin varied by ideology in some countries: “Those on the right of the political spectrum are often more likely to say they are confident in Putin to do the right thing regarding world affairs than those on the left.”

Italy provided a good example of ideological support for Putin with 16% of those on the country’s political right saying they had confidence in Russia’s President whereas only 4% on the left reported the same. 

“Europeans who support right-wing populist parties in their country are more likely to express confidence in Putin, compared with those who say they do not support the right-wing populist parties in their country,” the Pew Research Center noted, a pattern it previously reported on.