Vladimir Putin's favorability rating has taken an amazing turn among Republicans since President-elect Donald Trump began praising the Russian president.

According to a YouGov/Economist poll, Putin's favorability rating in July 2014, after the Russian annexation of Crimea, was negative-54 among Democrats and negative-66 among Republicans.

A poll from the same outlets released this month showed that Putin's favorability rating among Democrats dipped to negative-62. But the Russian leader's rating among Republicans improved dramatically, from negative-66 to negative-10.

8 PHOTOS What Putin and Trump have said about each other See Gallery What Putin and Trump have said about each other At the end of 2015, Vladimir Putin lauded Trump's presidential campaign, calling him "an absolute leader of the presidential race, as we see it." In response to Putin's compliments Trump said: "It is always a great honor to be so nicely complimented by a man so highly respected within his own country and beyond." Putin has called Trump a "very outstanding man" and "unquestionably talented." When Russia continued its military buildup in Syria and Putin backed the country's President Bashar al-Assad in 2015, Trump declared the Russian leader earned an "A" in leadership. Trump not only gave the Russian leader an "A," he also said Putin has been a better leader than US President Barack Obama. "He is really very much of a leader," Trump said of Putin. "The man has very strong control over his country. Now, it's a very different system, and I don't happen to like the system, but certainly in that system he's been a leader, far more than our president has been a leader." At a national security forum in September, Trump explained his friendly relationship with Putin saying: "If he says great things about me, I'm going to say great things about him." When asked about allegations that Putin orchestrated the deaths of his political opponents and journalists, Trump defended Putin: "I haven't seen any evidence that he killed anybody." After Trump won the election November 8, Putin sent the president-elect a telegram congratulating him on his victory. Up Next See Gallery Discover More Like This HIDE CAPTION SHOW CAPTION of SEE ALL BACK TO SLIDE

Taking a closer look, in the 2014 poll, 3% of Republicans had very favorable views of Putin in addition to 7% who had somewhat favorable views. That poll showed that 25% of Republicans had somewhat unfavorable views, while a whopping 51% had very unfavorable views of Putin.

The August 2016 poll showed that some of those numbers took a drastic swing.

In that survey, the percentage of Republicans who viewed him very unfavorably dipped from 51% to 14%, and those who viewed him somewhat favorably increased from 7% to 32%.

Calls for an investigation into Russia's role in the election reached a fever pitch following a pair of weekend stories from The Washington Post and New York Times that said a CIA assessment gave credence to the idea Russia meddled in the election by hacking and releasing information from Democratic operatives in hopes of leading Trump to victory.