Russia's war against Ukraine brought to naught the Soviet-era mythology of the brotherhood of the Russian and Ukrainian peoples, this is evidenced by the results of a survey conducted by the Razumkov Center sociological service on May 23-31, 2023.

"One of the fundamental mythologies of the Soviet era was the mythology of the 'brotherhood of the Russian and Ukrainian peoples.' Russia's 'hybrid' and full-scale wars against Ukraine discredited the idea of the brotherhood of the Russian and Ukrainian peoples," Deputy Director of the Razumkov Center sociological service Mykhailo Mischenko said at the presentation of the survey at Interfax-Ukraine on Monday.

According to him, some 43.2% of respondents believe that Ukrainians and Russians have never been fraternal peoples. In 2017, some 16% of respondents shared this opinion.

However, some 47.7% of respondents believe that Ukrainians and Russians used to be fraternal peoples, but they are no longer such (in 2017, some 49.6% of respondents thought so). Only 3.8% of respondents believe that Ukrainians and Russians were and remain fraternal peoples (in 2017, this figure reached 27.2%), while 5.3% found it difficult to answer the question (7.1% in 2017)

Mischenko drew attention to the fact that, compared to 2017, the changes in opinion among residents of the eastern and southern regions are especially noticeable. According to him, if in 2017 52% of the inhabitants of the east believed that 'Ukrainians and Russians have always been and remain fraternal peoples,' then in 2023 only 10% share this point of view here. In the southern region, the share of those who hold this opinion has decreased from 45% to 3%.

In the eastern and southern regions, the majority of respondents (53% and 72.5%, respectively) now believe that Ukrainians and Russians used to be fraternal peoples, but are no longer such. This position in the central region is shared by 48% of respondents, and 43% believe that Ukrainians and Russians have never been fraternal peoples. In the western region, some 61.5% of residents are of the opinion that Ukrainians and Russians have never been brotherly people.

The survey was conducted using the face-to-face method in Vinnytsia, Volyn, Dnipropetrovsk, Zhytomyr, Zakarpattia, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kyiv, Kirovograd, Lviv, Odesa, Poltava, Rivne, Sumy, Ternopil, Khmelnytsky, Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Chernivtsi regions and Kyiv, as well as in territories controlled by the government of Ukraine and where hostilities are not taking place in Zaporizhia, Mykolaiv, Kharkiv and Kherson regions.

Some 2,020 respondents over the age of 18 have been surveyed. The theoretical sampling error does not exceed 2.3%. Additional systematic deviations of the sample may be due to the consequences of Russian aggression, in particular, the forced evacuation of millions of citizens.

The survey has been conducted within the Matra programme funded by the Embassy of the Netherlands in Ukraine.