About 30 percent of Russians believe that Donald Trump possible victory at the forthcoming US presidential elections will be more beneifical for Russia, an opinion poll issued by POM on Friday said.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Almost 30 percent of Russians believe that the victory of Republican candidate Donald Trump at the forthcoming US presidential elections would meet the interests of Russia more than the victory of Hillary Clinton from the Democratic Party, an opinion poll issued by Public Opinion Foundation (POM) on Friday said.

POM questioned 1,000 Russians from 320 cities and 160 towns by phone last month.

A total of 28 percent of Russians think that Trump’s victory at the US presidential elections is a better alternative for Russia than the victory of Clinton with only 9 percent of respondents sharing the opposite point of view, according to the survey.

Most of those who would like to see Trump as a future US President (14 percent) explained their choice by his better attitude toward Russia, which can result in improving US-Russian relations. Only 2 percent of those questioned said the same about Clinton , the poll revealed.

Almost an equal percentage of respondents said that they assess Trump positively and negatively – 22 percent and 23 percent respectively. Almost a half of Russians have a negative opinion about Clinton, with only 8 percent having the positive opinion.

More than a quarter of the surveyed Russians (26 percent) said it did not matter for Russia who would win the US presidential elections. The most popular explanations were that the US attitude to Russia would not change in any case, the US elections were a matter of US internal affairs and that US presidents were not independent politicians.

The US presidential election is scheduled to take place on November 8, 2016.