of respondents with a positive view of Russia was only 31%. Anti-Russian sentiment in the United States and Western European countries improved during the presidency of Dmitry Medvedev, with about half of respondents in US, UK, Germany, Spain and France having positive views of Russia in 2011. It began to deteriorate again after 2012. The Transatlantic Trends 2012 Report indicated that "views of Russia turned from favorable to unfavorable on both sides of the Atlantic", noting that most Americans and Europeans, as well as many Russians, said that they were not confident that the election results expressed the will of voters. Attitudes towards Russia in most countries worsened considerably following Russia's annexation of Crimea, the subsequent fomenting of the 2014 pro-Russian unrest in Ukraine and its intervention in the resulting War in Donbas. From 2013 to 2014, the median negative attitudes in Europe rose from 54% to 75%, and from 43% to 72% in the United States. Negative attitudes also rose compared to 2013 throughout the Middle East, Latin America, Asia and Africa. According to political scientist Peter Schulze, the accusations of collusion with Trump campaign, coupled with the criminal case of Lisa F., which was reported in Germany as an instance of Russia's hybrid war, sparked fears that the Kremlin could meddle in German campaigns as well, resulting in growth of anti-Russian sentiment in Germany after 2016. By the summer of 2020, majority of Western nations had unfavorable views of Russia, with an exception of Italy, which was attributed by Pew Research Center to a delivery of medical aid by Moscow early during the pandemic. 85% of Americans polled by Gallup between 1 and 17 February 2022 had unfavorable view of Russia. 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine There was a sharp uptick in manifestations of the anti-Russian sentiment after the beginning of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine; following the start of the invasion, anti-Russian sentiment soared across the Western world. Since the invasion commenced, ethnic Russians and Russian-speaking immigrants from post-Soviet states are globally reporting rising instances of open hostility and discrimination towards them. This hostility is not just towards Russian people; it has also been seen directed towards businesses as well. Boycotts of Russian products prompted a rename of Latvian-made vodka Stolichnaya to Stoli, by a companywide effort to distance the brand from its Russian origin. An NBCNews.com columnist argued that symbolic boycotts of Russian products and