Throbert: As Benjamin Disraeli or Mark Twain or possibly someone else said: Существуют три вида лжи: ложь, наглая ложь и статистика.

It was Mark Twain: "There are three kinds of lies: Lies, damn lies, and statistics." As a journalist, one of my favorite quotes. And I agree with what you say about polls being extremely subjective. To be honest, I don't put a lot of stock in them these days because they are usually twisted to support whatever agenda they are used for.

But I have been hearing the kinds of comments from both Russians and Americans (not so much on this forum, but in other places) that I haven't heard since the 1980's and the last years of the Cold War. So I think there is most definitely a growing negativity and distrust between our countries, regardless of what the polls say.