Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders has received the most positive coverage of any contender from Russian state-backed new agencies, according to new research from a foreign policy think tank.

Russia is believed to be trying to boost Sanders' primary campaign while also helping President Donald Trump. New analysis from the Foreign Policy Research Institute revealed that Sanders received the most positive coverage of any candidate from Russia's Sputnik and RT news services.

Clint Watts, an FPRI fellow, told NPR Thursday that pro-Sanders Russian coverage has "really come on strong just in the last 30 to 45 days" and shows "very similar narratives that we saw in 2016 about Sanders."

The FPRI analysis took 3,897 stories and 5,082 mentions on Sputnik and RT from January 1, 2019 to March 2, 2020. It found that former Vice President Joe Biden was the most mentioned candidate (812 times), significantly ahead of Sanders (455 mentions). But 21 percent of Sanders' mentions were positive, compared to only 3 percent for Biden; seven times more positive mentions. Sixteen percent of Sanders' mentions were negative compared to 40 percent for the former vice president.