The survey, based on three weekly opinion polls carried out in January, said the Russian president enjoyed an 85% approval rating. The trust in Putin grew from 51.4% on January 16-22 to 54.3% during the last week of January.

MOSCOW, February 2. /TASS/. Vladimir Putin’s trust among Russians is stably high and the rating of the ruling United Russia party continues growing, a survey conducted by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center showed on Thursday.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu are among top three popular politicians in Russia with a trust rating of 18.2% and 17.7%, respectively. Some 60% of Russians positively assessed the work of the prime minister in January, while the cabinet’s performance was approved by 61.6% of respondents.

The figures slightly differ from those registered late last year, when the activities of Medvedev and the government were backed by 61.2% and 63.2% of Russians, respectively, according to the polling agency.

Sociologists note that the United Russia’s rating, which started growing in late 2016, continued climbing in January. The polls showed that the rating reached 50.8% in mid-January and remained at the same level during the last week of the month. The previous surveys carried out in December found that the ruling party’s rating was estimated at 48%.

The nation’s leading polling agency conducted the surveys based on the phone interviews with 600 respondents in at least 80 Russian regions. The margin of error does not exceed 4.5% for data collected during one day.