Russians see international terrorists, US equally as nuclear threat: poll

MOSCOW (AFP) Aug 06, 2003
Russians are equally divided as to who, between international terrorists and the United States, is the most likely to resort to using nuclear weapons, according to a survey published Wednesday on the 58th anniversary of Hiroshima.

Thirty-two percent of respondents saw international terrorists as a nuclear threat, with the same number seeing the United States in the same light, with just seven percent seeing North Korea as a nuclear threat, the ROMIR Monitoring institute said.

China was seen as a nuclear threat by six percent of those questioned, India and Pakistan by four percent, and Britain, France and Russia each by two percent, the poll showed.

Forty-one percent of respondents believed the threat of war had increased over the past 10 years (26 percent saw a slight increase, 15 percent a considerable increase), with only 19 percent seeing a reduction in the threat, ROMIR said, as quoted by the Interfax news agency.

Overall, 65 percent of the 1,500 Russians questioned on July 24-28 said there was a threat of nuclear war, with just 28 percent seeing no threat.

August 6 is widely marked around the world as the anniversary of the day in 1945 when a US airforce plane dropped an atomic weapon on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, killing around 140,000 people.

Japan capitulated nine days later, bringing World War II to a close.

WAR.WIRE