More Russians say they are afraid of terrorist attacks

Russians’ fear of becoming victims of terrorist attacks has grown against the background of the latest attacks.

A poll conducted by the Russia Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM) said that 72% of Russians are afraid of becoming victims of a terrorist attack, while a month earlier the figure was 65%. The current level of concern is close to January 2014, when the impressions of the terrorist attack in Volgograd were fresh in people’s memories.

Against this background, the number of those who do not think about this threat, has dropped from 18% to 12%.

However, 64% of respondents voiced confidence that Russia’s authorities are capable of protecting citizens from terrorist threats. 15% of Russians said they were confident that nothing threatened either them or their relatives (16% in October).

"Terrorist attacks cause a shock reaction and a natural growth of fear. For example, not only among residents of capital cities and big cities, but also those who live in small towns and villages, not only in the south of the country, where such events occur quite often, but across Russia. Those who believe that the Russian authorities will be able to protect the country’s residents from new terrorist attacks are afraid of attacks as much as those who do not pin high hopes on the authorities," TASS cited VCIOM expert Yuliya Baskakova as saying.

The survey was conducted among 1600 people in 130 population centers in 46 regions of the country on November 21-22. The poll’s margin of error is no more than 3.5%.

The president of the International Association of Veterans of the Alpha Anti-terrorism Unit, Sergey Goncharov, told Vestnik Kavkaza that such a state of affairs is largely due to the influence of the "media and television, which are showing us the attacks in Paris, Mali, Egypt and so on from morning to evening."

"And a second thing. Let's face it, there is probably no country in the world, including Russia, which can give an absolute guarantee that a terrorist attack cannot happen. It can be any provocation, any change in the political situation can immediately cause a risk," the expert added.

"Therefore, our people are afraid in this situation, because they see what's going on in the world. So it is a natural process, and I do not see anything extraordinary. Maybe in this case this danger will encourage our citizens to help our intelligence services," Sergey Goncharov concluded.

The director of the Center for Political Information, Alexei Mukhin, also believes that "the media play a key role." "Much has been done in order to create panic among the population. However, we must remember that the series of events that led to the creation of such nervousness in society was tragic: a consistent chain of tragedies over the Sinai, events in Africa, the tragedy in Paris. That is, these events emotionally sent Russians to a certain information track and it is difficult to escape from it," he said.

According to him, "It is necessary to explain to people how to act, how to carry out preventative work, how to deal with panic, how to behave indoors in the case of threats and so on. This is a very good reason to develop counter-terrorism mechanisms and put it to the public consciousness," Alexei Mukhin said.

/By Vesti Kavkaza/