Most Ukrainians believe in Ukraine's victory in war, optimistic about country's future – poll
An all-Ukrainian survey by the International Republican Institute (IRI) showed that the absolute majority of Ukrainians believe that Ukraine will defeat Russia in the war and are optimistic about the future of the country. Support for Ukraine's accession to the European Union and NATO remains high, according to the results of a survey released on Thursday.
Thus, according to the results of the study, 88% of Ukrainians believe that Ukraine will win the war with Russia. In addition, 80% believe that the future of their country looks "rather hopeful."
At the same time, 45% of Ukrainians believe that Ukraine, following the results of the war, will retain all its territories within the borders of 1991. Some 16% believe that Ukraine will return the territories that were controlled before the start of the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation on February 24, 2022, another 16% believe that Ukraine will lose part of the territories.
Some 37% of respondents believe that the war will last another 1-2 years, 26% - less than a year, 14% - expect the war to end within 3-4 years.
Stephen Nix, Senior Director of IRI in Eurasia, commenting on the results of the study, said that despite more than two years of continuous attacks from Russia, Ukrainians continue to believe that they will emerge victorious from the war. He said that their polls constantly show that Putin cannot break the strong spirit of the Ukrainian people.
The survey also shows that Ukraine is striving for rapprochement with the West. Some 77% of Ukrainians would support joining the EU as opposed to a customs union with Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. Also, 77% said they would vote for Ukraine's accession to NATO if the referendum were held today.
Nix said that their data clearly shows that Ukrainians consider closer relations with the West to be the best chance to achieve sustainable peace and prosperity.
The survey was conducted by the Rating Sociological Group commissioned by the Center for Analysis and Sociological Research of the International Republican Institute throughout Ukraine (except for the occupied territories of Crimea and Donbas) on February 17-21, 2024. The survey method is Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) – telephone interviews using a computer based on a random sample of mobile numbers. A total of 2,000 residents of Ukraine aged 18 and over were interviewed. The survey data obtained are weighted by regional (area of residence and type of settlement) and age indicators using data from the State Statistics Service of Ukraine as of January 1, 2022. The error of representativeness of the study with a confidence probability of 0.95 does not exceed ± 3.5 percentage points for the full sample. The respondents' reach rate is 14%.
The survey was conducted with the financial support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).