Economic pessimism among Russians at highest level in at least 20 years, poll shows

Russians are more pessimistic about the state of their economy than at any time in the past 20 years, and a majority say living standards are worsening, polling organisation Gallup said in a survey published on Tuesday.

Gallup said 60% of respondents in Russia said economic conditions in the city or area where they lived were getting worse, while only 27% thought they were improving and 9% believed they were remaining the same.

When asked about living standards, 56% said they were worsening, 29% said they were getting better and 14% saw no change.

The phone survey of 1,000 Russians, conducted between March 14 and May 6, reflects gloomy sentiment even before this month's sharp worsening of the fuel supply situation. At a time of high seasonal demand, shortages of gasoline have broken out in many parts of the country after Ukraine intensified strikes on oil refineries.

Confidence in the Russian military was down to 66%, Gallup found, from 80% in 2022, the year of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and confidence in the government fell to 53% from 66% in the same period.

Gallup also published the results of a survey conducted in Ukraine, which showed that approval of "the job performance of the leadership of the United States" had sunk to 7%, with 79% disapproving.

In the past two decades of Gallup polling across more than 140 countries, no other country has seen a larger drop in U.S. approval over any five-year period, the organisation said.

U.S. President Donald Trump, while sometimes criticising Russia's Vladimir Putin, has also leaned on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to accept a peace deal on terms that Kyiv considers unacceptable, telling him at the White House last year: "You don't have the cards."

Gallup said 24% of respondents said Ukraine should keep fighting until victory, while 66% said it should seek to negotiate an end to the war as soon as possible - little changed since a year ago, when the figures were 24% and 69%, respectively.

The survey of 1,000 Ukrainians, conducted in April, did not ask people what kind of negotiated settlement they would be prepared to accept.

(Reporting by Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Susan Fenton)