Almost three quarters of Ukrainians consider those who continue to live in occupied territories as victims of circumstances – KIIS survey

KYIV. Sept 19 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Only 12% of respondents are critical of those who continue to live in the territories occupied after February 24, and consider them collaborators or indifferent to Ukraine, according to the results of an opinion poll conducted by Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) on September 7-13.

The vast majority (72%) consider them victims of circumstances and believe that they want the return of Ukraine’s control over the occupied territories.

The majority of respondents, who consider those who live in the occupied territories as victims, are residents of the eastern regions (81%), although 10% of such respondents still said those people are indifferent to Ukraine or support Russia.

In terms of ethnic and linguistic categories, the majority of people, who consider those who live in the occupied territories as victims, are Russian-speaking ethnic Ukrainians (80%), while the lowest percentage of respondents with such opinions is among ethnic Russians (63%).

Some 31% of respondents, even at the cost of possible conflicts and threats to unity, are ready to support initiatives to prosecute those involved in possible miscalculations in the preparation for war. However, the majority (58%) still believe that these issues should be postponed to the period after the war, so as not to provoke conflicts within the country.

The number of respondents willing to bring to accountability those responsible for possible miscalculations in the preparation for war is slightly lower among residents of the eastern regions. The indices among the respondents from the rest of regions and among different ethnic and linguistic categories are not significantly different.

"The fact that a third of the respondents want to bring to justice right now for possible miscalculations in the preparation for the war shows the need for continued balanced and reasoned communication on the part of the authorities. After all, the majority of the population has social unity as a priority, which allows channeling this issue into the future after victory. However, it is not necessary to assume that there are no problems at the moment," the KIIS said in its press release on the survey.

The KIIS conducted the public opinion by the method of computer-assisted telephone interviews (CATI). Some 2,000 respondents living in all regions of Ukraine controlled by the government were interviewed. The survey was conducted with adult (aged 18 and older) citizens of Ukraine who, at the time of the survey, lived on the territory of Ukraine (within the boundaries controlled by the authorities of Ukraine until February 24, 2022). The sample did not include residents of territories that were not temporarily controlled by the authorities of Ukraine until February 24, 2022, and the survey was not conducted with citizens who left the country after February 24, 2022.

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 2.4% for indicators close to 50%, 2.1% for indicators close to 25%, 1.5% – for indicators close to 10%, 1.1% – for indicators close to 5%.

Under conditions of war, in addition to the specified formal error, a certain systematic deviation is added. In general, the obtained results are still highly representative and allow a fairly reliable analysis of public attitudes.