Only Serbians and Russians see NATO as threat - poll
Serbia and Russia are the only countries in Eastern Europe where a considerable majority of citizens sees NATO as a threat.
Source: B92
This is according to a poll conducted by Gallup.
"While U.S. President Donald Trump, even as recently as January, referred to NATO as 'obsolete,' residents in many NATO member countries in Eastern Europe associate the alliance with the protection of their countries," the agency said, presenting the survey on its website.
According to the poll, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, and Greece are the countries where most respondents said they considered the Western military alliance as neither a threat nor protection.
The situation is similar in Montenegro, (protection-threat-neither: 21-29-35) - while "all other Eastern European countries see NATO as protection."
In Serbia, only six percent shared this opinion, against 64 percent who said NATO was a threat, while 19 percent said "neither."
In Russia, 3 percent said "protection," 67 percent "threat," 20 percent "neither."
In Kosovo, said Gallup, these figures were 90 percent "protection," 3 percent "threat," and 6 percent "neither."
Albania (70-3-22), Poland (62-8-22), Lithuania (57-12-25), and Estonia (52-17-26) followed on the list of NATO's staunchest supporters.
Croatia is in sixth place (52-17-19). Although under 50 percent of respondents in Hungary, Latvia, the Czech Republic, Macedonia and Slovakia think of NATO as "protection" - under 20 percent see it as "a threat."
