Month: March 2019

The Kremlin had hoped that by fomenting a separatist insurgency in east Ukraine’s Donbas region, Ukraine could be snapped back into the Russian orbit, but the strategy appears to have backfired, say analysts.

The debate over whether Ukraine should look west and align with the European Union or east towards Moscow appears to be over — at least for now.

This month’s presidential election appears to many as another major stage in Ukraine’s journey to break free of Russia and carve out an independent future for itself free of constraints imposed by the Kremlin.

It is the first, they say, since the Soviet era that has not been dominated by debate about whether Ukraine’s best prospects rest with the West or Russia. Being labeled Russia-friendly is a liability for any candidate in an election that’s featuring 43 hopefuls.

And in his bid to secure re-election, incumbent president Petro Poroshenko, who is trailing according to opinion polls in third place, has not been shy to label his two main rivals: popular TV comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the upstart frontrunner, and veteran politician Yulia Tymoshenko, a former prime minister now campaigning as a recast Ukrainian nationalist, as “agents of the Kremlin.”

Pro-Moscow is out

The top openly pro-Russian candidate, Yuriy Boyko, a former deputy prime minister and ally of ousted authoritarian president Viktor Yanukovych, who was driven from office by the popular Maidan uprising in 2014, is languishing in fourth place.

In the opinion polls he is stuck at around 10 percent of the vote. And there are few signs he will be able to break out from his electoral stronghold of the south-east and improve his position before polling in the first round of voting on Mar. 31.

“He has Russian President Vladimir Putin to thank for that,” says Tetiana Popova, media expert and former deputy minister for information policy. Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its violent occupation of the Donbas regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in the east, has in effect deprived Boyko of a huge pool of pro-Russian voters.

Voters in the Donbas and the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea traditionally back candidates who promote close ties to Russia, but in this election they have all but been disenfranchised inadvertently by Putin. They face steep obstacles if they want to cast a ballot in the presidential race, having either to go to consulates overseas or travel to territory controlled by the Ukrainian government.

“Losing pro-Russian voters in Crimea and Donbas means the electorate has become even more pro-Europe — you can see it in the ratings,” says Popova.

And Russia’s intervention in the east, a reaction to the pro-Moscow Yanukovych’s ouster and part of a strategy, say Western diplomats, aimed at disrupting Ukraine and exerting pressure on it, is deeply angering Ukrainians. An estimated 13,000 people have died in the Donbas conflict. As a result, two-thirds of Ukrainians view Russia as an “aggressor country,” fueling pro-West sentiment and public support for the country to join NATO.

“Russia’s intervention in the east, where pro-Moscow separatists enjoy Russia’s full support, has backfired — it is just making Ukrainians more pro-Western,” says a U.S. diplomat. “It isn’t for nothing that people here say, ‘Putin may have got Crimea for a while, but he has lost Ukraine,’” he adds.

Debate not over, really

But some warn Russia should not be written out of the picture yet, noting that Ukraine has switched between East and West and back again before.

Writing in Foreign Affairs magazine, Ukrainian commentator Konstantin Skorkin noted that while “for the first time since Ukraine’s independence, national elections will not feature a powerful, pro-Russian force capable of winning,” the Kremlin will likely continue to play a “long game” to try to snap Ukraine back into the Russian orbit.

Elections later this year for the Verkhovna Rada, or parliament, could well be seized on by the Kremlin as “an opportunity to change the political course in Kyiv,” he fears. Viktor Medvedchuk, a well-known pro-Russian politician closely associated with Putin, has already announced plans to create a pro-Russia political coalition.

And the “Kremlin will likely try to enact its will by manipulating information and fomenting propaganda narratives that stoke division within Ukrainian society,” Skorkin cautions.

Some say that’s already happening.

Russian influence

There are fears that Russian special services with the help of local proxies are preparing to spread false exit-poll data to set the grounds for the Kremlin to claim the results are fake and the election illegitimate.

And Poroshenko has accused Russia of launching cyberattacks against Ukraine’s Central Election Commission. And Ukraine’s State Security Service, SBU, say cyber-hackers have been targeting campaign staff’s personal computers.

On Thursday, SBU deputy head Viktor Kononenko told reporters a “group of Russian citizens and Ukrainian collaborators” had used financial bribes to set up a network of people ready to vote for a certain candidate and to influence public opinion. He did not indicate which candidate.

Adrian Karatnycky, an analyst at the Atlantic Council, a U.S. think tank, has raised the possibility the Kremlin “may have had a hand in the doctoring of data” for an explosive media expose last week implicating the son of a Poroshenko associate in the embezzlement of millions of dollars from state defense enterprises.

The scheme, involving the smuggling of used parts from Russia and then the selling of them to Ukrainian defense companies at inflated prices, has been seized on by Poroshenko’s challengers.

Poroshenko has not been directly implicated in any accusations of wrongdoing, and his aides point out that the expose was based on leaked documents of an ongoing probe into the scheme by the government, an illustration, they say, of the incumbent’s commitment to fighting corruption.

“Whatever the ultimate truth of the allegations [and even the journalists say only that the evidence is ‘most likely’ true] voters should be skeptical until the facts have been ascertained,” says Karatnycky. “Given Putin’s aim to destroy any Ukrainian President who defies him, a Russian intelligence hand in this cannot be excluded.”

The fallout from the expose appears to be helping the upstart Zelenskiy.

Poroshenko is widely seen as the Kremlin’s least preferred candidate. He has pushed reforms to help Ukraine integrate with Europe and has responded robustly to Russian intervention in the east, say analysts.

Zelenskiy, who’s turned the race upside down by capitalizing on economic hardship and public fatigue with falling living standards, has promised to engage with the Kremlin to end the conflict in the Donbas. Poroshenko supporters say Zelenskiy is ill-equipped and too inexperienced to deal with the wily Putin.

 
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British Prime Minister Theresa May will on Monday set out plans for a $2.11 billion (1.6 billion pound) fund to help to boost economic growth in Brexit-supporting communities, particularly in the north of England.

The “Stronger Towns Fund,” details of which appeared in newspapers last month, is seen by many as part of May’s efforts to win support for her Brexit deal from opposition Labour lawmakers who represent areas that voted strongly in favor of leaving the European Union.

Britain is due to leave the bloc at the end of the month and May, whose exit deal with Brussels was rejected by a large majority of lawmakers in January, has promised parliament will get to vote on a revised deal by March 12.

The government said the fund would be targeted at places that had not shared fairly in the country’s prosperity and would be used to create new jobs, help to train people and boost economic activity.

“Communities across the country voted for Brexit as an expression of their desire to see change; that must be a change for the better, with more opportunity and greater control,” May said in a statement.

“These towns have a glorious heritage, huge potential and, with the right help, a bright future ahead of them.”

The opposition Labour Party’s finance spokesman, John McDonnell, said the fund was “Brexit bribery.”

“This towns fund smacks of desperation from a government reduced to bribing Members of Parliament to vote for their damaging flagship Brexit legislation,” he said in a statement.

One billion pounds has already been allocated, with more than half going to towns across the north of England. A further 600 million pounds will be available for communities around the country to bid for, the government said.
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An annual race run in Britain’s largest island ended with the promise of holy matrimony. One competitor who had previously won the quirky race carrying his girlfriend proposed to her after they won their second race in as many years. Arash Arabasadi reports.
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The Dutch man who married a British teenager after she ran away to join the Islamic State group says he wants to return home to the Netherlands with Shamima Begum and their newborn son.

Yago Riedijk, 27, told the BBC from a Kurdish-run detention center that he met Begum within days of her arrival in Syria when she was 15. He said in an interview aired Sunday that the marriage was “her own choice.”

When asked if marrying a 15-year-old was appropriate, he said: “To be honest, when my friend came and said there was a girl who was interested in marriage, I wasn’t that interested because of her age, but I accepted the offer anyway.”

Riedijk says that while he fought for IS, he now rejects the group and tried to leave it.

Begum fled east London with two other friends to travel to Syria to marry IS fighters in 2015 at a time when the group’s online recruitment program lured many impressionable young people to its self-proclaimed caliphate.

Begum, now 19, resurfaced at a refugee camp in Syria and recently told reporters she wanted to come home. But her apparent lack of remorse has triggered criticism in Britain and the family has expressed its own shock at her lack of repentance.

Home Secretary Sajid Javid has revoked her citizenship — even while saying he wouldn’t make a decision that would render a person stateless. Her family has insisted she isn’t a dual citizen. The case will be argued in the courts.

Although it’s unclear if Begum has committed a crime, her comments — and those of her husband — throw into sharp relief larger questions about how Western societies will deal with others who joined IS, but want to return to their home countries now that the extremist group is on the verge of collapse.

 
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has condemned an attack on a Holocaust memorial in the French city of Strasbourg.

Netanyahu on Sunday condemned the “horrific, anti-Semitic” defacing of a monument marking the site of a synagogue destroyed by the Nazis in 1940.

French police on Saturday launched an investigation the incident, in which a heavy memorial stone was moved off its base in the eastern city. The incident comes amid a rise in anti-Semitic attacks in France in recent months, including spray-painting of swastikas on around 80 Jewish gravestones last month.

Netanyahu called upon “all leaders of enlightened countries to join in denouncing it in a systematic and continuous fashion. The first way to combat anti-Semitism is to denounce, to condemn it unequivocally.”
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French authorities say about 50 migrants attempted to scurry aboard a cross-Channel ferry that had arrived from Dover, England into the northern French port of Calais late Saturday.

Officials say 44 of the refugees were apprehended, dashing their hopes of reaching England on the vessel’s return trip.

Two of the migrants fell into the water, but were quickly rescued.

Maritime officials say ferry traffic was delayed for several hours as police searched the ship.

Authorities say at least 100 migrants stormed into the port Saturday night.

The French news agency, AFP,  reports that police were continuing to look Sunday morning for a least four more migrants the police believed were still hiding out on the same ship where the other migrants had been apprehended.

 
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Thousands protested in Montenegro’s capital, Podgorica, on Saturday, the fourth such rally in as many weeks, demanding that President Milo Djukanovic and his government resign over alleged corruption, cronyism and abuse of office. 

Throngs of people, rallied by civic activists, bloggers and journalists who say they are not affiliated with political parties, marched through the center of the city chanting “Milo, thief.” Opposition politicians have distanced themselves from the protests. 

Weekly political protests also continued in Serbia, Montenegro’s larger neighbor and fellow ex-Yugoslav republic.

Marija Backovic, a teacher from Podgorica, said she was protesting for a better Montenegro. “We are not the danger for this country … those that are destroying it for 30 years are the real danger,” she told the crowd on Saturday. 

The rallies started after Dusko Knezevic, a former ally of Djukanovic, accused him and his ruling Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) of corruption, cronyism, abuse of office and murky financial deals. 

Both Djukanovic and the DPS have denied the allegations and said the protests are legitimate unless they turn violent. 

Djukanovic has dominated national politics in the small Adriatic country, a NATO member and candidate for European Union membership, serving as prime minister or president for most of the period since independence in 1991. 

Montenegrin prosecutors accused Knezevic, a banker, of fraud and money laundering, but he fled to Britain. He has said he will produce more evidence about alleged murky dealings by Djukanovic and his allies. 

In December, Montenegro’s central bank placed the small Atlas Banka, headed by Knezevic, under temporary administration as its capital failed to meet minimum risk requirements. In January, Atlas Banka sought to increase its capital again after hiking it last October by 1.37 million euros ($1.56 million) to 32.03 million euros. 

In Serbia’s capital, Belgrade, meanwhile, thousands marched in protest at what they see as the increasingly autocratic rule of President Aleksandar Vucic.

The veteran leader and his ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) are accused by political opponents of stifling media freedoms, and opposition parties have demanded Vucic’s resignation and establishment of conditions for free and fair elections. 

Vucic and the SNS, which with coalition allies holds a comfortable majority of 160 deputies in the 250-seat parliament, reject those allegations. 

Both Montenegro and Serbia are seeking join the European Union but have been told they must root out organized crime, corruption and nepotism and reduce bureaucracy before they can become members of the bloc. 
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Spain’s government says that unauthorized immigration by sea has dropped in the last month, falling to 930 people arriving in February compared with over 4,000 in January. 

Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said while on a visit on Saturday to Spain’s northern African enclave of Melilla that “the upward trend of recent months has been broken.” 

Spain became the leading entry point into Europe for illegal migrants last year, when it received over 57,000 people by sea compared with 21,000 in 2017. 

Opposition parties have criticized the Socialist-led government for being soft on illegal migration. After taking a more welcoming position on migrants compared with other European Union nations like Italy, Spain has recently tried to reduce arrivals. 

The issue is expected to be on the agenda in April’s general elections.  
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Tens of thousands of people have marched in Italy’s financial capital against policies by the populist government that they say promote racism.

The Milan city official in charge of migrant policy, Pierfrancesco Majorino, put the number of marchers under the banner “People First” at 200,000.

He wrote on Twitter: “Salvini, count us” aimed at League leader Matteo Salvini, who as interior minister has blocked the arrival in Italy of humanitarian ships that have rescued migrants fleeing Libya.

The demonstration, which finished in front of the Duomo cathedral, had a festival mood with bongo drums, trumpets and DJ music.

The head of the CGIL labor confederation, Maurizio Landini, said Italy’s government “is promoting the wrong policies, and is not fighting inequalities.”

 
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose AK Party is facing major defeats this month in local elections, is being accused of behaving like a “dictator” after his threat to remove victorious pro-Kurdish mayoral candidates.

Erdogan, addressing supporters this week, issued a stark threat to voters in Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeast: Candidates deemed sympathetic to the PKK Kurdish separatist group who are elected will be removed.

“If you happen to send the opportunities provided by the state to Qandil [where PKK leaders are based in neighboring northern Iraq], we will once again, immediately and without waiting any further, appoint our trustees,” Erdogan said.

The warning was aimed at Turkey’s second-largest opposition party, the pro-Kurdish HDP. Ankara accuses the HDP of being the political wing of the PKK, a charge it denies. Already, dozens of elected HDP mayors have been removed from office and jailed, accused of aiding the PKK.

The HDP’s leadership is calling on voters to take back control of the towns and cities seized by Ankara.

The pro-Kurdish party dismisses terrorist allegations against its candidates. “If they remove any of our successful candidates, it’s not that the elected mayors are terrorists but rather Erdogan is a dictator,” said Ertugrul Kurkcu, honorary president of the HDP.

Validated candidates

Kurkcu points out the Higher Election Board, which administers elections in Turkey, has validated all the HDP’s mayoral candidates. The HDP claims any alleged transgressions by its candidates during campaigning should be a matter for the Turkish judiciary, rather than the president.

Erdogan’s warning is being interpreted as an attempt at voter intimidation.

“This is a kind of a threat to Kurdish voters: If you want to have peace and tranquility in the region, you have to elect my candidates. If you vote for the opposition, I will sack the mayors. I am going to lead you like sheep,” said Kurkcu. “But after all these huge struggles for democracy, I do not see honorable Kurds or honorable citizens who will accept this threat. Instead, it provokes anger and rebellion.”

Kurkcu’s position may be well-founded. The HDP “will sweep all Kurdish-majority cities and towns despite massive intimidation and black propaganda,” predicted analyst Atilla Yesilada of Global Source Partners.

Analysts say there is growing anger among many Kurds over the security crackdown that has been in place since the collapse of the 2015 peace process with the PKK.

Towns ravaged

In Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeast, many towns and city centers were reduced to rubble as security forces ousted Kurdish fighters. Human rights groups say more than 200,000 people have been left homeless.

Along with over 80 pro-Kurdish HDP mayors removed from their posts and imprisoned, dozens of the party’s parliamentary deputies languish in jail, including its former charismatic leader, Selahattin Demirtas. They are all being held on terrorism charges.

State-appointed trustees now administer nearly all towns and cities in southeast Turkey. Many of the cultural reforms encouraging the Kurdish language have been rolled back, including the use of Kurdish on official signs.

Erdogan, in his early years in power as prime minister, had positioned himself as an advocate for Kurdish rights. He was rewarded electorally with his AK Party, securing more votes than the HDP in polls.

However, the collapse of the peace process with the PKK amid mutual recriminations saw Erdogan abandon the courting of Kurds and turn toward  Turkish nationalism. “There is a lot of distrust by Erdogan. Erdogan was sincerely believing in the peace process and believes the PKK and HDP abused this,” said international relations professor Huseyin Bagci of Ankara’s Middle East Technical University.

​Aligned with nationalists

Since the December 2015 general election, Erdogan’s AK Party has deepened its relationship with Turkey’s hard-line Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), which has been in the forefront of calls for a crackdown on the pro-Kurdish movement.

With the Turkish economy mired in recession and public discontent mounting, Erdogan now depends on the MHP’s support in the March elections. Analyist Yesilada said Erdogan has little choice but to continue his hard-line rhetoric against the pro-Kurdish movement.

“AKP doesn’t have the votes to retain Istanbul and Ankara,” Yesilada said. “Erdogan has to throw something to [MHP Chairman Devlet] Bahceli. … So we will see the worst manifestations of populism.”

However, the HDP is determined to make Erdogan pay a heavy electoral price.

“In western Turkey, our party is not listing candidates in seven major cities,” said Kurkcu, “meaning that we are directing our voters, around 10 percent of the electorate, to add their vote to the general opposition. This is not a vote for the main opposition but rather against Erdogan.”

The HDP’s surprise move could prove decisive, with opinion polls indicating the opposition ahead in many of Turkey’s main cities and Istanbul too close to call. Analysts suggest a serious setback for the AKP could be the impetus for Erdogan again resetting the political agenda by reaching out to Kurds and abandoning his Turkish nationalist ally.
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Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban was facing a groundswell of revolt Friday from allied center-right parties that want to kick him out of their European Parliament group less than three months ahead of the May elections.

Several Christian Democrat parties already have voiced their opposition to the continued membership of the EPP umbrella group of Orban’s Fidesz party. In recent years, Orban has been strongly identified with anti-migrant rhetoric.

Luxembourg Christian Democrat leader Frank Engel said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press he wants the EPP to take a decision ahead of the March 21-22 European Union summit in Brussels “because I have no intention of engaging in an election campaign with Fidesz still on board.”

Engel joined two Belgian parties in writing in a letter to the grouping’s presidency asking for Fidesz to be excluded because the Hungarian leader “has been acting in striking contradiction” with the EPP’s Christian Democrat values.

The EPP, they said, was too important “to be undermined within our own ranks by what we are so determined to fight: nationalism-based populism and open hostility against European integration.”

Dutch and Portuguese parties have echoed that complaint, which has swelled over recent months — that Orban is too far to the political right of traditional Christian Democrat values.

Orban’s stance on migrants from conflict zones has alarmed many within the group. He has accused European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, who is part of the EPP, of being too lax on immigration. Orban has plastered Budapest with posters showing Juncker as a gloating force of evil.

Juncker’s Commission issued a rebuttal on Thursday against Orban’s allegations — hardly the unity the grouping wants to display three months ahead of elections.

Dutch Christian Democrat leader Rutger Ploum said “recent events have shown that informal talks with Fidesz no longer have the desired effect.”

And Portugal’s CDS/PP party said in a letter to the EPP presidency that the differences with Fidesz “are too substantial” for Orban’s party to remain inside the group.

Orban hopes anti-migration forces will become a majority in all EU institutions, including the European Parliament and EU Commission, the bloc’s executive body.

Lajos Kosa, a Fidesz founder and an Orban government commissioner, was confident the party would not be expelled from the EPP for what he called “clarifying the truth.”

Expulsion “was also raised earlier by pro-immigration EPP politicians, but it has not happened so far and we don’t expect it now, either,” Kosa told broadcaster ATV. “The debate and clarification of facts ahead of the EU election is in the public interest.”

Engel said he was sure more Christian Democrat parties would join his call by early next week, enough to reach a threshold that the EPP group would have to discuss the issue, likely on March 20.

“There are certainly more to come,” he said.
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Americans’ views of Russia have plummeted to levels not seen since the collapse of the Soviet Union, according to a newly released survey by the U.S.-based Gallup polling center.

The data say 52 percent of Americans see Russian military power as a direct threat to U.S. vital interests, and that a third identify Russia as the United States’ arch rival, thereby displacing North Korea from the top position in Gallup’s semi-annual ranking of perceived U.S. enemies.

The percentage of Americans who view Russia unfavorably also increased a single percentage point to 73 in the latest poll, a record high in Gallup’s trends.

The findings follow a January 2018 poll by the independent Moscow-based Levada Center showed that two-thirds of Russians called the United States their main enemy.

Pavel Sharikov, a senior research fellow at the Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences, says although the latest results are a cause for concern, the outlook may not be as bleak as it seems.

“From my perspective, both Moscow and Washington have contributed to these numbers,” he said, noting that numerous variables – from Western sanctions over Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and accusations of meddling in U.S. elections, and the recent collapse of the INF weapons treaty – have sparked unprecedented levels of belligerent rhetoric.

“From the United States, there is a lot of criticism toward Russia, which Russian politicians take very seriously and very dramatically, and they react to this criticism” with escalated threats,” Sharikiv said.

“This sentiment in Russia [is] that it should remain a strong military power…the president’s and generals’ rhetoric about the Russian military being on the rise, about Russian weapons systems being so robust,” he said. “This is also what leads to Americans perceiving Russians and Russia as a military threat. So these polls are a very big concern.”

But general Russian public perceptions of the United States, Sharikov said, differ significantly from opinions held among the pro-Kremlin community. And a spate of recent polls in Russia, he added, indicate an increasingly positive perception of Americans.

“It used to be, a couple of years ago, the general Russian public opinion was that Russia and the United States are enemies, but I have looked at the recent polls of the Levada Center, and there has been a very clear trend toward a positive perception of the United States and Europe among Russians, especially among the younger generation,” he said.

“For a very long time, the negative perception of the United States was very clearly related to a very high rating of President [Vladimir] Putin, so right now there is no correlation,” he said. “And while President Putin’s ratings are very dynamic – and, right now, it’s getting lower – the general Russian public opinion is getting more positive toward the United States.”

Andrei Kolesnikov, a political analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Center, says general public fears of warfare expressed by people polled on “both sides of the ocean” aren’t likely to affect diplomatic ties in any significant way.

“Major political decisions are being made at a different level,” he said. “Besides, the relations between the countries are already quite poor. It just doesn’t help to improve the situation when ordinary people start thinking in a negative way.”

Outside St. Isaac’s Cathedral in St. Petersburg, where just days ago the choir sparked controversy with a performance of a Soviet-era satirical song about a nuclear submarine attack on the United States, locals appeared to be more nonchalant about the Gallup findings.

“This kind of published research just reinforces existing fears and biases and ultimately worsens relations,” said one young St. Petersburg resident, an engineering student, who asked to remain anonymous.

“People will believe whatever they see reported on television and online,” she said. “And, in Russia, what do they hear most about? U.S. political interference in other countries and sanctions. So of course they view the U.S. as a major enemy.”

On the streets of Moscow, too, one young professional, a psychology professor, echoed the opinion that news reports loaded with mutually antagonistic statements by U.S. and Russian officials – not to mention myriad online media threads – largely exaggerate perceptions of reciprocal enmity.

“All this gossip about Russian aggression began during Soviet times, in the mid-20th century or even earlier, and it’s never going to stop until people unplug from mass media,” he said, rolling his eyes at the mention of Gallup and Levada Center polls.

“I guess you can perceive me as an enemy if you want, but you’re perfectly safe to come have a drink with me if you like,” he added, laughing. “Thirst can be a truly dangerous thing, right?”

One Moscow-based American largely echoed that sentiment, emphasizing interpersonal connections over international relations.

“I think these polls are asking too general of a question and most people are totally politically incompetent,” said Robert, who chose to withhold his last name. “I think everyone should have a voice and democracy is a necessity but international politics isn’t a simple thing, and even experienced politicians can’t understand a lot of it – too many moving parts and cultural misunderstandings.”

Adding that he believes Russia and the United States are mutual enemies at the national level, he sees most of the conflict unfolding in geopolitical proxy disputes in places such as Syria.

“As an expat in Russia, and former expat in China and Cambodia, I don’t feel distrust or angst from locals, although they would have logical reason to feel it,” he said. “I feel different from the locals, of course, but my connection with them is on a personal level, not a political one. They realize and I realize, too, that governmental decisions are far, far removed from individual people themselves, especially in non-democratic countries like those I’ve lived in.

“I’ve spoken with people about politics in each of these countries and every one of them has shared my feelings of people connections, not political connections, between individuals,” he added.

Gallup conducted the poll among 1,016 Americans living in all 50 states between Feb. 1 and Feb. 10.

Olga Pavlova contributed to this report from Moscow.

 
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