98% of Ukrainians Believe Russian Will be Defeated, New Poll Finds

A poll released on Thursday by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) shows strong optimism across Ukraine, with 98% of citizens stating Ukraine would be victorious over Russia, and 91% approving of Zelensky’s job performance.

64% of citizens oppose ceding any of Ukraine’s territory to Russia, supporting the return of Ukraine to its internationally recognized borders as of 1991.

Stephen Nix, Senior Director for IRI’s Eurasia Division, commented that the polls showed that “Ukrainians are very firm in their conviction that they will be victorious in the conflict against Russia,” highlighting that the citizenry gave strong support to “the actions of their wartime president”. Nix said that the poll’s figures confirmed the findings of IRI’s earlier polling.

The latest poll found that there has been a sharp uptick in support for NATO membership, with 72% now saying that they would vote in favor of Ukraine joining – an increase of 13% since IRI’s last poll in May.

In reference to this shift of support towards NATO membership, Nix stated that the “NATO numbers have increased because Ukrainians continue to believe in the benefits of Transatlantic institutions,” continuing that the Ukrainian “people have expressed increased support for a strong relationship with Western countries that desire a peaceful and democratic future.”

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Other recent polling has shown that Ukrainians are more optimistic now about the future of their country than compared to any other time in history. Across nearly all demographics there has been a surge of general optimism in the country which historically had always demonstrated especially strong sentiments of pessimism.

The poll, taken of 2,004 Ukrainians,aged 18 and older from across the country (except for temporarily-occupied Donetsk, Luhansk, and Crimea) was conducted by phone using CATI.