Majority of Ukrainians hope situation in country to improve in future – poll

KYIV. Jan 16 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Over the past 2022, Ukrainians have changed their assessments of the effectiveness of the Ukrainian state and their views on future prospects, according to the results of a survey conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS).

"As a result of the war and the awareness of the value of their own state, which has always been undermined by socio-political negativism in Ukraine, the corresponding assessments have changed significantly. Thus, the assessments of the effectiveness of the Ukrainian state have significantly improved (only 9.3% of respondents demonstrate low ratings on the relevant issue) and expectations from its future (76.2% believe that the situation will improve)," the report says.

Thanks to this, the researchers note, general attitudes towards the state have changed from predominantly negative in 2021, when the ratio was 55.8% of negative assessments against 6.6% of positive assessments to predominantly positive assessments in 2022 – 46.6% of positive assessments against 26 .1% negative.

In addition, the trend towards strengthening civic identity, recorded by the Institute of Sociology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine since 2000, continued during the war. The corresponding identity type has grown from 62.6% in 2021 to 79.7% in 2022. All other types of territorial and civil identities are represented very poorly.

"According to our analysis, the period of national and civil crystallization, which lasted from 2015, was replaced by a period of national and civil consolidation, the transition to which was caused by a large-scale war. In fact, we believe that the process of forming a civil nation has ended in Ukraine, which does not remove the need to resolve the next important task on a national scale – full-fledged European integration," the researchers said.

The Ukrainian Society sociological monitoring was conducted by the KIIS upon request of the Institute of Sociology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in 2022. The research tools were developed by the Institute of Sociology. The results of the survey represent the adult population of Ukraine, with the exception of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the temporarily occupied territories of Donbas (after weighting – in accordance with the demographic structure that existed before the start of the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine).

The survey was conducted by computer-assisted telephone interviews (CATI) and exclusively by mobile phone numbers.

The statistical error of the sample in the amount of 2007 respondents with a confidence level of 95% is 2.2%. Assuming that the design effect of such a sample under normal conditions is 1.1, the maximum sampling error should be no more than 2.5%. At the same time, there may be additional biases associated with a military invasion that cannot be fully assessed.

The field phase of the study lasted from December 19 to 25, 2022.