Most Mentioned Enemies of Russia

I missed the least guessed answer. It did seem quite a random one to me, the others I can see the logic in their inclusion, but it seemed to stand out.

As for Georgia, I guess its size and the fact the 'war' was pretty much a walk over means Russians don't see them as a huge threat.

Interesting quiz though.

The war was not exactly related to Georgia or its people (going beyond the obvious). I went to that small country about a year ago and there were Russians everywhere in the non-conflict areas with no hostility shown towards them. The Georgian people told me "We love the Russian people, hate the government." So...

I'm surprised Armenia and Azerbaijan didn't make the list with the perpetual hot and cold fighting in the whole region.

At some point the poll might be measuring "countries Russian have heard about/think about".

Another possibility is that there are countries that have a close relationship with Russia but which the Russian public is divided on whether it is a positive or negative relationship.

A pretty large percentage of Israelis are from Russia or have ancestors who were.

There is no border dispute between Russia and China.

1.4 billion citizens actually.

I mean, that's a lot of countries...

It is the Russian minority population living in Lithuania that are evidently feeling threatened. Also, Lithuania does not border Russia proper, but borders the exclave Kaliningrad, so could threaten it with the backing of the EU, a block much more powerful than Russia.

"Russians" tend to be full of skepticism towards their own government. Never ever have they trusted their own government, not in centuries, so it's not really a "threat". Maybe they trust(ed) selected leader figures, but never the remaining bureaucracy, from the prime minister down to the local postman. No need for 'suspicion' since the wide-spread existence of corruption, focus on personal gain, and nepotism are common knowledge. Source: Russian friends in Russia.

People are much the same everywhere. There are Americans who trust their government and those who don't. There are Russians who trust their government and those who don't. I think a couple commenters above are using different definitions of what it means to be skeptical. Americans traditionally are very distrustful of what they see as authority figures. I think many Russians are similarly cynical about their own leaders. But if you convince anyone that you are on their side and part of the team, it's easy to convince large numbers of people to believe almost anything and there are certain media outlets (Fox, Russia Today) that are exploiting this fact egregiously.

I wish that all people were more properly skeptical, as I define it- capable of thinking critically about any and all information whether it confirms your biases or trust or not. But this is in short supply everywhere. Human beings are prone to accepting the reality they are presented with. Skepticism has to be learned.

I wouldn't wish any of the conspiracy laden, partisan blind, self-hate that America wallows in upon another country.

I found this to be the case when I visited Cuba. I was worried about hostility, especially when I went to Guantanamo, but everyone was very welcoming. I finally got the courage to ask a Cuban about it, and his response was just that: "We have no problem with you. We're happy you're here. It's your government we hate." I would also guess that this attitude is more likely in a country like Cuba, where the government controls so much of people's daily lives that the citizens can easily understand that a government's whims does not necessarily reflect the values of most of its citizens.

Exactly. These countries didn't ask for all of this to happen to them. Russia didn't ask for Lenin's Revolution. Syria didn't ask for Assad's "leadership". North Korea didn't ask for Soviet Occupation, or to be forced to become a Communist. The populations of these countries are not asking for bad stuff.

Egypt and the Soviet Union were close allies during the Cold War under the leadership of charismatic Arabist leader Gamel Nasser. When Anwar Sadat took over and pivoted toward the West, Russo-Egyptian relations quickly soured and would not be normalized until Mubarak.

Since then Egypt became an extremely popular tourist destination for Russians. I'm not sure what it's like now, but if you had visited the popular resort city Sharm al-Shaikh any time 5-10 years ago you would have seen most of the tourists there were Russian to the point where hotel signage and staff were more likely to be written in/speak Russian than English.

In 2015 a Metrojet (Russian) passenger jet full of Russian tourists departed from Sharm on its way back to Russia. It exploded mid-air killing everyone on board. ISIS's Sinai branch took credit and Russia suspended all flights going to Egypt.

I find it quite strange that they have hostilities towards most of the countries they border in Europe, but are just kinda "meh" to Kazakhstan and Mongolia.

Russian state propaganda continuously pumps jingoistic paranoid nonsense into the minds of its people informing them about how the Russian-speaking populations in *every* neighboring country are being mistreated and abused, to prime the population for any eventual invasion that Russia decides to make to "come to the defense" of the Russian people in those countries. We've seen this happen already in Georgia and Ukraine; the Baltic states are very worried it might happen there next. If Russia's puppet in the White House continues to do their bidding by undermining every strategic alliance built since the end of WW2 and designed to contain Russia, and NATO falls apart, then it might happen at some point.

The situation in Syria is very complex and 3% isn't a very high number of people. I'm guessing those 3% who answered that way are slightly confused.

Or they're just salty that Canada has surpassed them as the preeminent force in their national sport.

Case in point: the United States.

I'm very worried about Trump and his GOP allies, but a lot of that has to do with the fact that they are doing Putin's work for him, either knowingly because they are craven and/or complicit, or unknowingly because they are ignorant morons, or some combination of both. I'm also very worried about the fate of American democracy vis a vis the sorry state of its present electorate and their level of awareness, but a lot of that is to blame on Russian disinformation. On balance I think Putin is the bigger threat here, though if he was removed from the picture I guess that Trump would still be a horrible president and probably destroying the world in some other way; and his supporters would still be ignorant they would just be repeating different lies not related to Russia.

Well China and Russia have traditionally been allies going back quite a ways, though that could very well change in the near future as their interests are not so aligned anymore.

Probably a combination of what I said above about Russian propaganda prepping its citizens for any potential future conflict with neighboring states, and some lingering memories of the Winter War.

But why should (the official) Afghanistan be a major thread to Russia? Doing Jihad stuff may motivate similar things in some Russian provinces, fine. But the official country? I mean, under permanent fear of getting killed either by a drone or by jihadists, do still have the time to hate Russia (which was by the way fighting along with the government - not like that 2001 invasion)?

4% of the interviewed Russian see Iran as a threat. That's not very hated after all, is it?

It might be because the question is open-ended, and Latvia and Lithuania are easier to remember as a pair because their names are alliterative.

Vladimir Putin should be #1 on the list. Hopefully the Russian people will wise up and rise up. I think that there are more who recognize him as a threat than who were fooled into thinking Ukraine was one.

In Russia, there is such a low percentage of those who hate Ukraine, because firstly, there are many Ukrainians in Russia (by blood and newcomers), many people consider Ukraine a fraternal country. Personally, I hate the Ukrainian leadership, but I love Ukraine very much

Uzbekistan would make the list if enough Russians were aware of its existence.