The popularity of Putin returns to a record high of 75.7%

The Russian President's popularity reached the peak of the last five years, with three-quarters of citizens to approve the policy around the Crimea and Ukraine.

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Experts point out, however, an unprecedented merge of Russian society as a whole, including also and the public in Moscow and St. Petersburg, which seemed to be dominated by the oppositional moods in the past.

According to analysts of the research centers VTSIOM FOM, Putin's popularity had reached such numbers before the years of economic crisis (2008). To the question "Who would you vote for if the presidential election were held Sunday," 60 % responded to the V. Putin, while the overall popularity reached 75.7 %, when during the past years consistently traded slightly above 60%.

The Director of the Institute for the Regional Priority Projects, Nikolay Mironov describes an "unprecedented for the last 30-40 years merge of Russian society", with even more impressive the "homogeneity" of choice, equally between different social groups , when in the past were observed significant differences in their responses.

"Elections are always a compromise. It happens sometimes, that citizens do not have a very good opinion about a leader, but despite all this to vote for him, because there is no matching alternative. In the present case there is no compromise, only similar consensus" remarks Mironov, who finds that even in Moscow and St. Petersburg, V. Putin's popularity reached high levels, a sign that "the socio - political disagreements of the past have been overcome".

According to Mironov "these trends will persist for a long time, as they involve the acceptance of different layers and the approval of the policy of the "national leader" in foreign policy and also in the key policy directions of Russia in general."

According to the professor of the Higher School of Economics, Matveitsef Oleg, the Russian president's popularity soared to at least 85 % after the historic speech to reunite Russia and the Crimea, but sociologists have not yet had a chance to capture these trends. Similar opinion has analyst Alexei Zountin, noting the trend for a further increase of the popularity of V. Putin and the rallying of Russian society around him.