The population of Ukraine for about 20 years have been dramatically changing attitude to a number of geopolitical processes, including the prospect of joining NATO, the EU, accession to the union of Russia and Belarus and others, as evidenced by the results of a survey conducted by the Institute of Sociology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine jointly with the Intellectual Perspective charity foundation.
According to the poll, 61 percent of respondents expressed positive attitude to Ukraine’s accession to the union of Russia and Belarus in 1998, while 21 percent of them opposed the union. This positive attitude prevailed until 2013 (50 percent vs. 28.5 percent) and changed in 2014 (positive – 24 percent, negative – 51 percent), remained negative in 2015 (61.5 percent – negative, 22 percent – positive), and in 2016 (57 percent and 25 percent respectively).
Minor changes were observed in the attitude of Ukrainians to the country’s accession to the European Union. The greatest support for EU membership was expressed at the beginning of conducting survey in 2000 – 56 percent of respondents supported EU accession, whereas 10 percent were against. Further, support for EU membership was falling, having reached its minimum in 2013 (42 percent) and it kept growing in the following years (51 percent in 2014, 56 percent in 2015 and 48 percent in 2016).
Perception of Ukraine’s cooperation with the IMF was also changing from mainly positive in 2000-2010 to mostly negative in 2012-2013. In 2014 it drastically changed for the positive (36 percent of positive attitude vs. 22 percent negative), while positive perception significantly rose in 2014 (44 percent of positive attitude and 24 percent negative). In 2016 the number of supporters and opponents of cooperation with the IMF almost equalized (35 percent and 32 percent respectively).
The nationwide survey of Ukraine’s population had been conducted by the Institute of Sociology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in cooperation with the Intellectual Perspective charity foundation from June 13 to July 4 by quota sample, representing the adult population of 18 years and older. The poll was conducted in all the regions of Ukraine (excluding Crimea and the occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions) by means of personal interviews at the respondents’ place of residence. A total of 1,802 persons were interviewed. The margin of error does not exceed 2.3 percent.
