Moscow, 12 March: The efforts of the Russian government to minimize the effects of the financial and economic crisis are not going unnoticed by the country's citizens; however, Russians differ in their assessment of cabinet ministers' work, sociologists' research shows.

In the opinion of more than half of Russians polled (52 per cent), the country's government is doing everything possible to protect the population from the negative impact of the economic crisis, while a third (33 per cent) hold the opposite point of view, according to the results of the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM) research, which were published in Moscow today.

According to the results of the poll, which was conducted on 7-8 March in 100 communities of 44 regions with the participation of 2,000 respondents, Russians' assessments of the government's activities in the financial and economic crisis are divided: 39 per cent of citizens give positive responses and the same number (39 per cent) negative. Another 23 per cent had difficulty in assessing.

During the poll, 37 per cent of its participants declared trust in the government, 23 per cent do not trust them, and 32 per cent of citizens "partly trust and partly do not (trust)".

According to FOM's data, 39 per cent of Russians believe that the country's government wants to, but cannot protect the population from the negative effect of the economic crisis; 23 per cent think that it is capable but does not want to do anything for it; 16 per cent of respondents are sure that the government wants to and can help citizens improve their situation at the time of the crisis.

The most pessimistic attitudes - "the government cannot and does not want to protect the population" - were expressed by 11 per cent of those polled by sociologists.

Among those Russians who note the deepening of the crisis in the country's economy (58 per cent), the majority of respondents (23 per cent) had difficulty speaking about the dates when it will end. The rest made different forecasts: 2 per cent believe that this will happen in the summer of this year, 4 per cent - winter 2009-2010 and 3 per cent - spring 2010. Four per cent of respondents forecast the end of the crisis (will be) in 2011 and 2012, 5 cent after 2012, and 6 per cent generally believe that the crisis phenomena will remain forever, FOM's research showed.