Very interesting public survey in the occupied Ukraine

First, the disclaimers: no, I am not naive enough to believe that it is possible to make a truly representative survey in the Nazi-occupied Ukraine. Yes, I do understand that each article, survey or opinion piece published in the Ukraine has been paid for by some interest group. And no, I do not believe that the people living under the Nazi junta are given enough information to make up their own opinion about these topics. But still, I think that even with all these caveats the following survey is fascinating.


The survey was made by the Ukrainian based Center for Sociological Studies. The survey itself is entitled “The results of the survey “Socio-political orientation of citizens“. The full survey can be seen here in Ukrainian:


http://www.sofia.com.ua/page167.html


and here in machine-translated English:


https://goo.gl/BHXVYr


There are many interesting responses in this survey, but here are the most interesting ones (I havebolded out in red some of the most interesting figures)


Generally speaking, do you think that things in Ukraine are in the right or wrong direction?

Definitely in the right direction	4.1
Rather in the right direction	21.2
Rather in the wrong direction	31.4
Definitely in the wrong direction	34.6
Do not know / do not know	8.7

In your opinion, to what extent the President and government to blame for the economic problems that the country is going through?

Fully to blame	40.4
Partly to blame	47.9
Not not blame	5.6
Hard to say	6.1

In your opinion, which tasks should be a priority for the president and the government?

Improving the economic situation and job creation	15.6
Uniting the country, overcoming contradictions,	6.0
Stopping the war in Donbass	48.5
Preventing rising prices	8.9
Corruption Eradication	7.8
Normalization of relations with Russia	1.6
European integration, EU membership	3.3
Increasing social benefits and guarantees	3.6
Back Crimea to Ukraine	0.7
Expanding the powers of local government, decentralization of power	0.6
Ensuring energy independence of Ukraine	0.6
Cutting taxes	0.5
Other	0.2
Nothing indicated	0.3
Hard to say	1.8

Do you think the President and the government are doing everything necessary in order to stop the armed conflict in the Donbas?

The government is doing everything in its power to end the conflict	12.2
The government is doing something, but this is not enough	48.7
The government practically does nothing to end the war	33.5
Hard to say	5.6

Some believe that is most important to stop the war in Donbas, even if you have to give up the occupied territories. Others believe that Ukraine should continue to fight until they establish control over all occupied territories. Which view is closer to you?

The main thing – to stop the war in Donbas, even if you have to give up the occupied territories	61.8
Ukraine should continue to fight until they establish control over all occupied territories	22.9
Hard to say	15.3

In your opinion, in what steps can go to stop the war in Donbas and normalize relations with Russia?

	Fully acceptable	Rather acceptable	Rather not acceptable	It is not acceptable	Hard to say
Officially neutral status of Ukraine confirm and declare that it will not join NATO	14.3	21.2	18.6	32.8	13.1
View agreement with the EU on association and free trade zone	12.7	23.8	16.0	31.9	15.6
Embed Ukraine federal structure and expand the powers of regional authorities	8.2	19.7	17.4	36.6	18.1
Provide Russian language official status in Ukraine	10.0	19.9	17.2	42.5	10.4
Officially recognize the Crimea to the Russian Federation	3.0	8.1	16.2	58.7	14.0
Recognize the independence of the DNR and LNR	4.3	8.4	17.1	56.5	13.7

To sum thing up:


Even though a strong majority (58.7%) of Ukrainians do not accept the secession of Crimea or the independence of the DNR/LNR (56.5%), an even bigger majority (61.8%) is willing to give up part (or all?) of the Donbass in order to achieve piece.


Furthermore, in spite of the crippling economic crisis, a very strong relative majority of Ukrainians (48.5%) believe that achieving peace should be the top priority of the Ukraine and the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians believe that the government does too little (48.7) or even nothing (33.5%) to end the war.


Please remember that these are public opinion figure without the Donbass and without Crimea! In fact, 81.9% of the respondents referred to their nationality as “Ukrainian” and only 26.6% said that they spoke only Russian at home.


In other words, the vast majority of Ukrainians want peace above all else, and the vast majority of the Ukrainians believe that they are not getting it primarily due to the fault of the junta in power. Add to that the whopping 88.3% (40.4%+47.9%) who also believe that the economic mess is also the responsibility of the regime and you will get a sense of how truly unpopular the junta really is!


It is particularly interesting to contrast these results with the result of similar surveys in Russia where well over 80% of respondents consistently fully support President Putin and the political course of Russia.


So who do you think is winning this one?


The Saker