Poll shows that people in central and western Ukraine oppose any concessions to Russia
KATERYNA TYSHCHENKO — MONDAY, 30 MAY 2022, 19:05
In the course of Russia’s full-scale invasion, people living in the central and western regions of Ukraine have become much more negative about making any concessions to the aggressor and believe in Ukraine’s victory.
Source: an opinion poll conducted by the Democratic Initiatives Foundation on 7-15 May
Details: As of May, 78% were against making any concessions to the Russian Federation. Only 7% of respondents were prepared to refuse to join NATO for the sake of peace with Russia.
In February 2022, only 43% of respondents were against making any concessions to Russia. 14% were prepared to refuse to join NATO.
A relative majority of the population of the central and western regions of Ukraine supports the idea of either suspending the negotiation process until there is a military solution (34%), or scaling back the negotiations to just humanitarian issues (44%). Only 2% of respondents are in favour of achieving peace through concessions by Ukraine in the negotiation process.
94% of citizens living in the western and central regions believe that Ukraine will win the Russian-Ukrainian war. Only 1% disagree with this opinion.
Among the Ukrainians who are confident of Ukraine's victory, 41% will consider the withdrawal of Russian troops from all over Ukraine and the full restoration of control over the state border as of 2014 to constitute victory. The same number (41%) believes that only a situation where the Russian army is completely destroyed and the Russian Federation falls apart can be considered a victory.
91% of respondents are in favour of completely breaking off all (economic and diplomatic) relations with the Russian Federation, including a total ban on Russians entering Ukraine. 4% of respondents do not approve of such measures. Another 6% have not yet decided where they stand on this issue.
As of May, 96% of the population of the western and central regions of Ukraine believe that the war was initiated by Russia's political leadership, and just over half (54%) of Ukrainians blame the Russians for the war.
Compared to the first half of February 2022, support for Ukraine's accession to the European Union has increased by 16 percentage points among the population of the western and central regions of Ukraine. Currently, 89% of respondents support joining the EU. The increase was mainly due to a change in the opinion of those who had previously advocated refusing to join any political or economic unions.
During the war, support for NATO membership has slightly increased (+ 5%). Currently, the absolute majority of the population of the western and central regions of Ukraine (74%) supports joining the North Atlantic alliance. Support for Ukraine's non-aligned status has fallen to a record low of 3%, but support for an alternative non-aligned status with security guarantees for Ukraine is about 13%.
Reference:
The face-to-face poll was conducted on 7-15 May 2022 by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation in cooperation with the Center for Political Sociology with the support of the John Fell Oxford University Press Research Fund.
A total of 1,000 respondents were interviewed in a sample representing the adult population of seven western oblasts (Volyn, Zakarpattia, Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv, Rivne, Ternopil and Chernivtsi) and four central oblasts (Vinnytsia, Kirovohrad, Khmelnytskyi and Cherkasy). The sample is representative of indicators such as sex, age, type of settlement and area of residence. The margin of error does not exceed 2.2%.
For comparison, the researchers used data from surveys conducted by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation in February 2022 in the same regions of Ukraine.
