The majority of Hungarians support Hungary building balanced and mutually beneficial relations with Russia, a fresh survey released by government-leaning think tank Századvég Foundation shows.

A total of 75% favoured pragmatic relations with Russia as opposed to only 5% saying that “Hungary should not even talk to Russian President Vladimir Putin at all,” the survey revealed. Altogether 18% of respondents supported building friendly relations with Russia.

Századvég’s survey also gauged Hungarians’ opinion about the world’s top three political leaders, namely Russian President Vladimir Putin, newly inaugurated US President Donald Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Most popular among them was Putin, favoured by 35% of respondents, compared with 44% rejecting him. Trump came in second, with 27% seeing him in a positive light and 38% viewing him unfavourably. Fully 34% of respondents were unable to give an opinion. Least popular was Merkel, with only 26% viewing her favourably.

Almost half of Hungarians oppose the European Union’s sanctions against Russia, while one-third of them support the measure, according to an another fresh survey. Fully 47% of Hungarians are against the anti-Russia sanctions, while 33% are in favour of them, the poll made by the right-leaning Nézőpont Institute and commissioned by pro-government daily Magyar Idők, shows.

The sanctions are mostly opposed by government sympathisers, with 58% of them expressing a negative opinion about the measure. As many as 51% of self-declared left-wing voters are also against the sanctions. Supporters of the radical nationalist Jobbik party, however, were divided on the issue, with 47% in favour of and 47% against the sanctions.

Nézőpont’s survey, which was carried out on January 20-23 with a sample of 1,000 adults, also found that 63% of respondents viewed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s upcoming visit to Budapest as a positive, while 20% saw it in a negative light. The phone survey was carried out on January 20-23 with a sample of 1,000 adults.

via hungarymatters.hu and MTI