Majority of Muscovites Support Truck Driver Protests – Poll

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – December 11, 2015)

More than 70 percent of Moscow residents aware of the ongoing protest by truck drivers support their action, a poll released Wednesday by the independent Levada Center indicated.

While the majority of Muscovites are familiar with the protest, 21 percent of the capital’s residents said they had heard nothing about it, while another 2 percent hesitated to answer, Levada Center said in a report.

Among those who said they knew about the protest, 71 percent expressed strong or moderate support for it, the poll indicated.

Truckers are protesting a new tax system, called Platon, that levies additional fees on heavy trucks for the use of federal highways. Truck drivers, many of whom own the vehicles they operate, say the system would erode their earnings.

The Levada Center poll was conducted on Dec. 4-8 among a “representative sampling” of 1,000 people in Moscow, and gave a margin of error of no more than 4.8 percent.