Nearly half of Russian citizens approve of 1939's Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, a Levada Center poll released on Wednesday has found.

Thirteen percent of Levada’s respondents said they “definitely approve” of the pact, while 32 percent they “somewhat approve” of it.



A combined 17 percent said they “definitely” or “somewhat” disapprove of the treaty that the USSR and Nazi Germany signed on Aug. 23, 1939.

Two-fifths of the 1,600 people polled said they had “heard of” the pact and “think that it happened in real life,” the survey revealed. One-third said they’ve never heard of it, while 17 percent said the pact was a “fake.”