Most Ukrainians against blocking VKontakte, Yandex and Odnoklassniki

More than half of Ukrainians surveyed oppose the blockage of Russian social media resources, according to a survey conducted by the Kyiv-based Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation.

Some 35.1% of respondents "categorically" opposed the bank of Russian social media platforms (VKontake, Odnoklassniki, Yandex and Mail.ru), while 18.3% "mostly" did not favor it. Some 11% "categorically" approved, with 10.8% "mostly" approving the ban. Some 10.4% of respondents had difficulty answering the question, while 0.4% did not answer it. Some 14.1% said they had not heard of the measure.

More people in Ukraine's western regions supported the ban (40% - supported, 35% - not), while in Ukraine's southern regions only 6% supported the measure, with 67% opposing. In Ukraine's eastern regions 15% of respondents supported the measure, against 61% opposed, while in central Ukrainian regions 20% supported the ban, while 55% opposed.

Asked whether they had used Russian social media platforms immediately before the ban, 40.8% said they had used Odnoklassniki, 40.6% VKontake, 27.8% Yandex and 21.5% Mail.ru. Some 38.6% said they had not used any of the platforms.

The national survey was conducted by the Kyiv-based Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation and the Kyiv-based Razumkov Center from June 9 to June 13. Some 2,018 respondents aged 18 and over took part nationwide, with the exception of occupied areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions and annexed Crimea. The theoretical margin of error of the survey was 2.3%.