negatively in 1999, compared to 25% in 1991. Anatol Lieven considered the Western commentary on the Second Chechen War and a Russian reaction to eastward NATO expansion to be the main cause of growing Russophobia in the 90s. Condemning the brutality of the Russian army and an exaggerated fear of NATO, he argued that the influence of the elites and ethnic lobbies, coupled with 19th century stereotypes about Russian expansionism led Western journalists and intellectuals to drop professional standards and engage in propaganda, spreading Russophobia and national hatred. In April 2007, David Johnson, founder of the Johnson's Russia List, said in interview to the Moscow News: "I am sympathetic to the view that these days Putin and Russia are perhaps getting too dark a portrayal in most Western media. Or at least that critical views need to be supplemented with other kinds of information and analysis. An openness to different views is still warranted." California-based international relations scholar Andrei Tsygankov has remarked that anti-Russian political rhetoric coming from Washington circles has received wide echo in American mainstream media, asserting that "Russophobia's revival is indicative of the fear shared by some U.S. and European politicians that their grand plans to control the world's most precious resources and geostrategic sites may not succeed if Russia's economic and political recovery continues." In contrast, Krystyna Kurczab-Redlich and some other reporters active in Chechnya alarmed already in early 2000s that Putin's true nature and intentions have been exposed by the Russian atrocities during the Second Chechen War as by no means resembling those of a Western democrat. It was, however, convenient for the Western elites to brand these reports as Russophobic and disregard them, in spite of such reports being delivered also by Anna Politkovskaya, a Russian journalist and human rights activist, later assassinated. The first among these views has ultimately suffered utter discreditation in a humiliating manner after 2014, primarily because it was inherently flawed as it focused exclusively on the fantastic motivations behind anti-Russian sentiment in Western Europe, while entirely disregarding the precisely specified reasons of negative views of Russia in Central and Eastern Europe which stem in turn from real experience and knowledge. In October 2004, the International Gallup Organization announced that according to its poll, anti-Russia sentiment remained fairly strong throughout Europe and the West in general. It found that Russia was the least popular G-8 country globally. Overall, the percentage