Ukrainians believe Ukraine is moving towards unity – infographics

More than two-thirds of Ukrainians believe that the country is now moving towards solidarity and unity, in stark contrast to surveys conducted before Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Source: a poll conducted by Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) on 29 November - 9 December 2023

Quote: "After the large-scale invasion, the views of Ukrainians changed radically. By the end of 2023, the majority of Ukrainians – 69% – held the opinion that Ukrainians are gradually overcoming differences and that the nation is on its way to political unity. The share of those who see the deepening of disagreements and ideological splits has decreased to 25%. The remaining 6% were undecided."

Graph1. Which of these statements do you agree with to a greater extent?

* In 2020, due to a different socio-political context, the wordings were close in terms of content, but somewhat different: "Ukraine as a country is being stitched together, is on the path of unification" and "Ukraine as a country is falling apart, is on the way to a split".

Infographics: KYIV INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE of SOCIOLOGY

Details: The sociologists reiterated that in 2020, only 35% of Ukrainians believed that the country was on the path of unification, while 58% thought the nation was heading towards a split.

Now, the majority of the population believes that Ukrainians are overcoming internal disputes and are on the path to unity. 

The number of such people is relatively higher in the west (74%) and the centre (39%) of Ukraine, but in the south and east, a convincing majority sees political unity in their country’s future (66% and 65%, respectively).

Graph2. Unity or split in the regional dimension

Regardless of the language spoken at home, most respondents believe that Ukrainians are still overcoming internal differences.

Sociologists pointed out that among Ukrainian-speaking respondents, the share of such respondents is slightly higher (75%). But even among Russian speakers, the majority (60%) are optimistic about the unity of Ukrainians.

Graph3. Unity or split in terms of the language of communication at home

For reference: The survey was conducted from 29 November to 9 December 2023. A total of 1,031 respondents aged 18 years and older and living in all oblasts of Ukraine (except the Autonomous Republic of Crimea) were interviewed using computer-assisted telephone interviews based on a random sample of mobile numbers.

Residents of the occupied territories that the Ukrainian government did not control prior to 24 February 2022 (the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, the city of Sevastopol, and some areas in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts) were not included in the sample, and the survey was not conducted with citizens 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 systematic deviation is added in addition to the specified formal error. 

However, sociologists are convinced that the results obtained retain high representativeness and allow for a fairly reliable analysis of public sentiment.

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