MOSCOW. March 17 (Interfax) - More than ninety percent of Russian citizens agree with Crimea becoming a part of Russia, a poll held jointly by Public Opinion Foundation (FOM) and All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM) said.
"We are seeing fantastic figures and we have not seen such consensus on any issue. This is unique and an empiric fact," FOM President Alexander Oslon said at a news conference on Monday.
According to Oslon, when asked during the telephone survey conducted on March 14 to March 16 in all Russian regions whether Crimea should join Russia as its region, 91% respondents said yes, 5% no and 4% failed to respond. The selection amounted to 48,500 respondents - between 300 and a thousand persons in each region.
The question on the attitude of Russians towards Crimea joining Russia was the last one out of the four asked. The first question concerned whether or not Russia should protect the interests of Russians and other ethnicities in Crimea. And 94% respondents replied yes, 3% no and 3% more failed to answer.
The second question was whether or not Russia should protect Russians and other ethnicities in Crimea even if it complicates Russia's relations with other countries. Eighty-three percent said yes.
When asked about the support for "Crimea is Russia" statement, 86% of respondents said yes, 9% shared the opposite stance and the others did not respond, the poll showed.
The survey that was conducted was a unique one in that VTsIOM and FOM held a survey of such a vast scale for the first time, Oslon said. Sociologists of the two enterprises received results independently from each and they turned out to be statistically identical, he said.
Moscow had the same results in the survey as other Russian regions, VTsIOM General Director Valery Fyodorov said. "Ninety-one percent were in favor. They say sometimes that Moscow is not Russia. But as you can see Moscow is Russia in this regard. And Crimea is Russia as well," he said.