(MOSCOW) - Two-thirds of Russians dislike the United States following last month's war in Georgia, the country's highest level of anti-US sentiment in a decade, a Moscow polling agency said Thursday.

Sixty-seven percent of respondents said they had "mostly negative" attitudes toward the United States, while only 23 percent had "mostly positive" feelings, the independent Levada Centre said in a statement.

The level of anti-US sentiment was the highest recorded since the centre began polling Russians about their attitudes to the US on a monthly basis in 1997, and it had risen sharply since July, before the war in Georgia.

"Clearly, this is connected to the latest events in the North Caucasus," the centre said of its poll, which was conducted from September 12 to 15 amid the worst chill in Russian-US relations since the Cold War.

The survey also found a sharp increase in negative attitudes towards the European Union as well as record levels of animosity towards Russia's pro-Western neighbours Georgia and Ukraine.

The EU still came out favourably -- with 45 percent viewing it positively and 39 negatively -- but previous surveys had consistently found overwhelming majorities who approved of the European bloc, the centre said.

The poll found that 53 percent of Russians dislike Ukraine -- the first time in six years the country evoked a majority of negative responses, according to the centre -- and that a whopping 75 percent dislike Georgia.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko was a strong supporter of Georgia in the conflict and sought to impose new restrictions on Russia's Black Sea Fleet, based in Ukraine's port of Sevastopol, in the wake of the war.

The centre said its poll of 1,600 Russians had a margin of error of three percent.

Text and Picture Copyright 2008 AFP. All other Copyright 2008 EUbusiness Ltd. All rights reserved. This material is intended solely for personal use. Any other reproduction, publication or redistribution of this material without the written agreement of the copyright owner is strictly forbidden and any breach of copyright will be considered actionable.