Poll results: Slight improvement amid national pessimism in Ukraine, positive local outlook

IRI's Center for Insights in Survey Research held a public opinion survey of the residents of Ukraine from 9 June to 7 July 2017. The survey polled 2,400 permanent residents of Ukraine aged 18 and older throughout Ukraine sampling the representation of the general population by gender, age, region, and the size of settlements. An additional 4,800 respondents were also surveyed in the four cities of Dnipro, Mykolaiv, Khmelnytskyi, Mariupol to compare local-level responses with nationwide results.

The national outlook remains pessimistic since April 2014. However, it has slightly improved as compared with 2015-2016.

More than 60% of respondents said that the economic situation worsened in entire Ukraine as well as for their households over the last year, 43% are expecting further worsening in the next year. Local surveys in four cities in different parts of Ukraine revealed that Ukrainians are positive about the local developments against their pessimistic evaluation of the overall situation in the country.

 

The positive local outlook may be indicative of progress made in the decentralization reform. The reform created 413 new united territorial communities and gave them resources and authority. It helped implement hundreds of projects, create dozens of convenient public service centers, and build thousands of kilometers of new roads. In December 2016, the Verkhovna Rada allocated 35 billion hryvnia (about $1,3 billion) for the reconstruction of the road infrastructure. Ukrainians don't trust their politicians. More than 70% disapprove activities of the President and the Cabinet of Ministers. The disapproval rating of the Parliament is even worse (88%). The highest approval rating of politicians reaches only 22%, while 40-90% tend to negatively evaluate the politicians. The highest ratings of the political parties are merely 5-10%. Ukrainians express strong support for the European Union and NATO. Most of the respondents are of the opinion that Ukraine should enter both structures. The lowest positive evaluation (29%) of entering the EU was observed in the eastern Ukraine where 40% still want to see Ukraine in the Russia's Customs Union. The highest (78%) support for the EU membership was discovered in the western provinces.

Some 40% favor entering the NATO with only 16% of supporters in the east and 59% in the country's west.

The Ukrainians remain positive towards most of their neighbor countries as well as towards the US and Canada, the European Union and its member states. Meanwhile, a half of the respondents evaluate cold attitude towards Russia.

Read also: USA and Ukraine are Russia’s top-2 enemies, new Levada poll shows

According to the poll results, the most important issues for Ukraine are corruption within state bodies (51%), the military conflict in the Donbas (50%), and law industry production (29%). Meanwhile, the most important personal issues for the participants of the survey were control over price growth (44), unemployment (34%), the Donbas conflict (34%), and the social protection (31%). Only 30% see corruption as an important personal issue.  

---

Read more:

• Decentralization as a remedy for bad governance in Ukraine
• War, NATO, EU, reforms. 10 key messages from the YES conference-2017 in Kyiv
• Ukraine now more supportive of NATO than Visegrad EU countries
• Decentralization reform can be Ukraine’s success, if it doesn’t stop halfway
• Ukraine and NATO
• Swedish ambassador: Ukraine’s reforms easier to see from outside
• Historian Yaroslav Hrytsak: Ukraine will not be broken, but radical reforms are needed
• Ukrainian MP Hanna Hopko on the controversial decentralization vote
• Ukraine’s decentralization and Donbas “special status”: what you need to know
• Ukrainians’ Public Opinions: Pro-Europe, Skeptical of Moscow (2014)
• Russian press: Friends and Foes of Russia (2014)