World tends to think of Crimea as Russia

An increasing number of residents of Europe and the United States call the Crimea a part of Russia, a survey conducted by Sputnik said. The number of citizens of Germany, who share such an opinion, nears 36 percent. About a quarter of Britons (26 percent), 34 percent of Italians and 23 percent of Americans share the same opinion.

Interestingly, 25 percent of residents of Paris think of the Crimea as a Russian territory, whereas the number of the people living in French provinces think so at a lesser extent - 21 percent in the north and the east and 16-17 percent in the west and the south-west of France.

In general, the number of respondents who consider the Crimea a part of Russia is roughly equal to the number of those holding the opposite opinion. Yet, the number of those, who think of the Crimea as Russia, is larger only in France.

In Germany, many young people call the Crimea a Russian territory. In France, on the opposite, this opinion is shared by the people of the older generation.

At the same time, more than a half of American respondents, nearly a half of French and British respondents found it difficult to establish the affiliation of the Crimea.

The survey was conducted on February 16-22 by international research company TNS Global among 5,138 respondents.

A recent survey conducted among residents of the Crimea by Ukrainian sociological agency GfK Ukraine in cooperation with Berta Communications and Canada Fund for Local Initiatives showed that 82 percent of the Crimeans fully support the peninsula's presence within the Russian Federation.

Pravda.Ru

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