Over the past several presidencies, American opinion about Russia has changed rapidly based on how presidents have treated the country. During the presidencies of both George W. Bush and Barack Obama, Russia’s favorability rating1 rose initially as both presidents attempted public overtures to improve relations.2 But opinions fell steadily throughout each man’s second term after crises in U.S.-Russian relations.
These kinds of events can create short-term volatility as well as longer-term changes in U.S. public opinion of Russia (though there is not enough polling to measure Americans’ reaction to every event). For example, Russia’s favorability rating fell 11 points between February and April 1999 during tensions related to the NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia, and its favorability plummeted 22 points as Russia opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Both of those changes were relatively short-lived, but the polling suggests that public opinion underwent more lasting changes after events like Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia, the granting of political asylum to Edward Snowden in 2013, and political and military intervention in Ukraine in 2014, all of which were strongly criticized by the White House. [...]
The share of Americans who had a favorable opinion of Russia in that time has ranged from 24 percent to 66 percent, a span of 42 percentage points. None of the other five countries has had a range greater than 33 percentage points. The second-widest range belonged to Cuba, which became more popular after President Obama started normalizing relations with its government.
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