MOSCOW. July 22 (Interfax-AVN) - An opinion poll suggests that more than half of Russia's population expect Russian-American relations to improve seriously after U.S. President Barack Obama's visit to Moscow early this month.
Fifty-four percent of respondents in the poll, carried out by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM), expressed this view, VCIOM told Interfax on Wednesday.
Thirty-four percent said Obama's visit and his talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev during it would have no effect on Russian-U.S. relations.
Only 1% said the summit would have a negative effective on relations between the two countries.
Another proportion of 34% argued Obama's visit had been fruitful for both countries. Another 37% said that on the whole the summit had been quite good but that it had been unable to solve the majority of problems in relations between the two nations.
Eight percent expressed confidence the U.S. leader's visit had been useless.
Another 8% credited the Moscow summit with resulting in mutual understanding on disarmament.
Eleven percent said Obama's visit had brought about an improvement in Russian-American relations and that this was the main result of the summit. Six percent concurred with the view that Obama's visit had been a mere "courtesy call" and that the reason for it was for Obama to meet Medvedev.
Three percent said Obama and Medvedev had signed important documents.
Another 3% argued that many problems remained unsolved.
The points that the summit resulted in agreements on joint action against the world economic crisis, on other forms of economic and other cooperation, and on peaceful coexistence received support of 2% each.
One percent said it was too early to assess the visit.
Fifty-eight percent were undecided about making assessments.
The survey, carried out on July-18019, spanned 140 cities, towns and villages in 42 Russian regions.