While Vladimir Putin has faced condemnation from the west for his troops' takeover of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula, at home the Russian president is enjoying his highest approval ratings in the past two years. Research also appears to confirm solid support for Russian intervention in Ukraine.

According to a survey conducted by the state-run pollster VTsIOM on 1-2 March, just as Russian forces were quietly taking control of key infrastructure in Crimea, 67.8% of respondents approved of Putin's job performance.

Although the president regularly achieves approval ratings above 60%, this was his highest rating since May 2012. Researchers attributed this latest number to the political situation regarding Crimea and the Olympic and Paralympic Games, which respondents said were the two biggest news events that week.

In addition, 71% of respondents said Russia should more actively defend the interests of Russians in Crimea, while only 17% thought it would be better not to come into conflict with the Ukrainian authorities. These results were similar to those for the same question five years ago.

Masha Lipman, an analyst at Carnegie Moscow Centre, said the majority of Russians have viewed the change of regime in Kiev as a "rebellion by west Ukrainian fascist nationalists" – an opinion reflecting state television's negative coverage. "I haven't seen surveys about deploying troops but I think there will be widespread support especially since this is Crimea, and many Russians think it is Russia's by right," Lipman said.

State television – the main source of news for most Russians – has portrayed anti-Yanukovich protesters as nationalists and neo-Nazis from western Ukraine. It has played footage of protesters with swastika armbands and implied that Kiev is still in the throes of violent chaos even though the capital is relatively calm.

Coverage of the Crimean parliament's request to join the Russian Federation on Channel One showed mostly elderly protesters in Simferopol holding Russian flags and anti-EU and anti-American signs.

Originally a part of Russia, Crimea was given by the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev to Ukraine in 1954, but ethnic Russians continue to make up 59% of Crimea's population of 2 million, according to 2001 census data.

Putin said in a televised press conference on Tuesday that Russia reserved the right to deploy troops to Crimea but maintained that the unmarked soldiers there were local self-defence forces.

International military experts, however, have said thousands of Russian troops have already been deployed in addition to those normally stationed at the Black Sea naval base Russia leases from Ukraine.

A Moscow entrepreneur, Yury Kazachkov, said he had watched the press conference and "absolutely agreed" with what Putin said. "If the Ukrainian nation appealed to us for help through their legally elected president, then we should support them. We have a legitimate reason to deploy troops," he said. , referring to a letter the ousted president Viktor Yanukovych sent Putin this week asking for Russian troops to restore "law and order" to Ukraine.

Kazachkov also said he also saw the need to protect Russians in Crimea and stand up to anti-Russian policies by the new Kiev government.

But other Russians oppose intervention, including a Moscow engineer, Artyom Ivanov, who said Putin "thinking he's a king" was a more likely motive for deployment than the official line, repeated by state media, that Russia needs to protect Russians in Crimea.

"The police and army of Ukraine should protect them. What are we doing there?" he said. "Recently I've seen so much propaganda that it kills my appetite."