How The World Views Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Putin
Even though there is no evidence that Putin gave the order to carry out a high-profile killing in public, the decision to use nerve agents that could be linked to Russia carries considerable risk. Some have claimed that Putin might have arranged the attack to engineer a confrontation with the west in order to improve turnout at the polls. If the UK goes a step beyond expelling diplomats and imposes sanctions, Russia could find itself more isolated and that has proven deeply unpopular with the country's electorate. Putin is expected to win Sunday's election easily and even if Russian media portrays the events in Salisbury as some kind of western conspiracy to rally voters, the president's image is still likely to worsen internationally.
The most recent polling into how Putin is viewed abroad was conducted in August 2017 by the Pew Research Center. Even before the events in Salisbury, Putin was very unpopular across the world. In Poland where the relationship with Russia has never been easy, 89 percent of Pew's respondents said they have no confidence in Putin doing the right thing regarding world affairs. In France, the share was also high at 80 percent. In the United Kingdom and the United Stated, 76 and 74 percent of people have no faith in the Russian president doing the right thing on the world stage.

Description
This chart shows the share confident about Putin doing the right thing regarding world affairs (Aug '17).