Over the years of the war with Russia, the moods toward Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic integration have changed considerably in the south and east of the country. Currently, it is supported by up to 90% of citizens in each region.
This was announced by Anton Hrushetsky, executive director at the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), during a press conference on the dynamics of socio-political moods of Ukrainians amid war, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.
“Now we have tackled the main differences, in particular geopolitical ones. After all, until 2022, there were a large number of opponents of joining the EU and NATO in the south and east. Now we see that 80-90% (of citizens) in all regions support Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic integration. There are outlines of consensus on language policy. We see an unambiguous consensus on the understanding that Russia is an aggressor and an adversary,” said Hrushetsky.
Sociologists emphasize that these are the issues that had divided Ukrainian society until 2022. From now on, work toward a deeper understanding of these issues must continue.
“Changes have occurred and they are fixed for a long time to come. We have not completely overcome these differences (in views – ed.). Accordingly, we should not assume that everything is already wonderful. This work must continue,” he added.
According to the sociologist, the vast majority of citizens in all regions also agree that the only official state language should be Ukrainian. At the same time, politicians still manage to exploit the language issue to gain support from some groups of voters.
“A significant part of citizens would like to be able to communicate in everyday life and not feel pressured to use Russian. We repeatedly asked whether it is worth studying Russian in schools, today a third of Ukrainians answer that they would like to have such an option. By the age of 22, more than half of Ukrainians wanted Russian to be studied in school. And in the 1990s, the majority (of Ukrainian citizens – ed.) believed that it should be studied at the same level as the Ukrainian language. Now Russian is considered simply one of the foreign languages. That is, this issue is being depoliticized, but still, in order to get a small number of seats in parliament, this topic can still be exploited,” he added.
As Ukrinform reported earlier, referring to the all-Ukrainian Omnibus public opinion poll, conducted on May 15 – June 3 by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), 52% of Ukrainians surveyed stand categorically against any territorial concessions.
Photo: www.nato.int
Source: Up to 90% of Ukrainians support future accession to EU, NATO - poll
