Number of people ready to give up some territories for peace is rising in Ukraine

Over the past six months, the proportion of Ukrainians who would be prepared to make territorial concessions to end the war has been gradually increasing, rising by 9% from May to December.

Source: a poll conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) on 29 November - 9 December   

Quote: "In the period from May 2022 to May 2023, the situation was relatively stable: about 8-10% of respondents were ready for territorial concessions, and the vast majority, 82-87%, consistently opposed any concessions. 

Since May 2023, there has been a gradual increase in the percentage of those who are ready for territorial concessions: from 10% in May to 14% in October and 19% in December."

Details: There has been a corresponding decline in the share of those who oppose territorial concessions (from 84% in May to 80% in October and 74% in December).

The sociologists pointed out that between May and October 2023, it was mostly people living in Ukraine’s south and east who accounted for the increase in the share of those who are ready for territorial concessions, whereas the increase between October and December was driven by people living in Ukraine’s west and centre.

The share of such respondents increased from 9% in October to 20% in December in the west, and from 10% to 15% in the centre.

In the south and east, changes in the share of those who are ready to make concessions are much less noticeable, but the sociologists still pointed to some negative trends.

Quote: "At the same time, a clear majority of respondents in all oblasts (from 68% and 69% in the south and east to 76% and 79% in the west and centre, respectively) still oppose territorial concessions to Russia."

The survey was conducted from 29 November to 9 December. A total of 1,031 respondents aged 18 and up living in all oblasts of Ukraine (except the Autonomous Republic of Crimea) were interviewed by telephone based on a random sample of mobile numbers. The sample did not include residents of the territories temporarily not controlled by the Ukrainian authorities before 24 February 2022 (the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, the city of Sevastopol, and certain districts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts), and the survey was not conducted with Ukrainian citizens living abroad.

Formally, under normal circumstances, the statistical error of such a sample (with a probability of 0.95 and taking into account the design effect of 1.1) did not exceed 3.4% for indicators close to 50%, 3.0% for indicators close to 25%, 2.1% for indicators close to 10%, and 1.5% for indicators close to 5%.

In times of war, a certain system deviation is added to the formal error, but the sociologists believe that the results remain highly representative and allow for a fairly reliable analysis of public sentiment.

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