The press release was prepared by Anton Hrushetskyi, deputy director of KIIS

During September 15-22, 2022 the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) conducted its own all-Ukrainian public opinion survey "Omnibus". By the method of computer-assisted telephone interviews (CATI) based on a random sample of mobile phone numbers (with random generation of phone numbers and subsequent statistical weighting), 2,000 respondents living in all regions of Ukraine (except AR of Crimea) were interviewed. The survey was conducted with adult (aged 18 and older) citizens of Ukraine who, at the time of the survey, lived on the territory of Ukraine (within the boundaries controlled by the authorities of Ukraine until February 24, 2022). The sample did not include residents of territories that were not temporarily controlled by the authorities of Ukraine until February 24, 2022 (AR of Crimea, the city of Sevastopol, certain districts of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts), and the survey was not conducted with citizens who left the country after February 24, 2022.

Formally, under normal circumstances, the statistical error of such a sample (with a probability of 0.95 and taking into account the design effect of 1.1) did not exceed 2.4% for indicators close to 50%, 2.1% for indicators close to 25%, 1.5% - for indicators close to 10%, 1.1% - for indicators close to 5%.

Under conditions of war, in addition to the specified formal error, a certain systematic deviation is added. In particular, if back in May, among all the respondents we interviewed, 2.5-4% lived in the territories occupied after February 24 (and this corresponded to the percentage of those who live there, because the generation of telephone numbers was random), now, due to the occupiers turning off the telephone connection we managed to interview fewer respondents living in occupied settlements, in particular, their number is 0.3%. It is important to note that although the views of the respondents who lived in the occupation were somewhat different, the general tendencies were quite similar. That is, the impossibility of interviewing such respondents does not significantly affect the quality of the results. There are other factors that can affect the quality of results in "wartime" conditions (see Annex 2).

In general, we believe that the obtained results are still highly representative and allow a fairly reliable analysis of public attitudes.

In September 2022, Ukraine achieved significant success in the Kharkiv Region. Of course, there are a number of factors that contributed to the success of the actions of the Ukrainian army and which were actively discussed by the public. Without minimizing the influence of other factors, we wanted to find out how Ukrainians evaluate the contribution of support to the West and correlate it with, in fact, the contribution of Ukraine itself and Ukrainians.

Therefore, the respondents were asked a question where they could choose the answer options from "exclusively thanks to the actions of Ukraine and Ukrainians" (i.e. completely ignoring the support of the West and emphasizing own forces) to "exclusively thanks to the help of the West" (i.e. completely ignoring own forces and emphasizing the support West). Between these extreme options there were three intermediate options, which testified to the recognition, albeit to a different degree, of the contribution of both sides (Ukraine / Ukrainians and the West).

Hence, for 80% of Ukrainians, the successes of the Ukrainian army are a joint achievement and a joint result of the actions of Ukraine and Ukrainians and the support of the West (of them, 40% give some preference to Ukraine / Ukrainians, 36% see the contribution of Ukraine / Ukrainians and the West equally, and 5% give some preference to the West). 10% speak of the exceptional influence of the actions of Ukraine/Ukrainians, and of the exceptional role of the support of the West – 3%.

Graph 1. In your opinion, the recent successes of the Ukrainian army are the result of...?

In all regions of Ukraine, the absolute majority (77-82%) consider the successes of the Ukrainian army to be a joint result of the actions of Ukraine / Ukrainians and the West.

Table 1. In your opinion, the recent successes of the Ukrainian army are the result of...? (regional dimension)

A. Hrushetskyi, comments on the survey results:

First of all, it is important to communicate these results to our partners in the West at all levels - to convey both to the political leadership and the public. The absolute majority of Ukrainians see the support of the West and believe that our victories are joint victories of Ukraine and the West. Therefore, helping the West is not just an act of "charity", but participation in joint historical achievements and victories.

It is necessary to understand that 73% of Ukrainians believe that the West is not tired and wants the victory of Ukraine on terms acceptable to us. The absolute majority of Ukrainians want to see Ukraine as part of the West (90% for EU membership and 73% for NATO membership). Therefore, in this period, when Russia is holding pseudo-referendums (absolutely contrary to the real moods of the population of the occupied territories, which were and remain completely pro-Ukrainian, see https://kiis.com.ua/?lang=ukr&cat=reports&id=1138&page=1), threatens with nuclear weapons, plans to officially annex the occupied territories - it is important to maintain and increase support for Ukraine and Ukrainians who are desperately fighting for their country and their people. 

Also, these data indicate that the Ukrainian public is becoming more and more mature (although, of course, the process is still ongoing). On the one hand, we do not suffer from an "inferiority complex" (85% consider the contribution of Ukraine/Ukrainians to be equal to or higher than the contribution of support of the West). On the other hand, we do not suffer from "hat-throwing" (only 10% attribute successes exclusively to Ukraine / Ukrainians). It is necessary to deepen the understanding of the place of Ukraine as part of the West and the understanding of this war as a joint struggle against aggressive Russia and the Russians.

Annex 1. Formulation of questions from the questionnaire

In your opinion, the recent successes of the Ukrainian army are the result of...?

(% among all respondents)

Annex 2. Methodological comments on the representativeness of telephone surveys conducted during the war

Even before the full-scale Russian invasion on February 24, 2022, there were a number of factors that negatively affected the representativeness of the polls (for example, the absence of a census for more than 20 years). A full-scale war, of course, greatly affects representativeness and complicates the work of sociologists, but does not make it impossible. Access to reliable data on the state of public moods remains relevant both for Ukrainians themselves and for our foreign partners (who, as the events of the past 5 months have shown, often underestimated and did not understand Ukraine and Ukrainians).

At the same time, in order to maintain objectivity, it is necessary to understand what limitations the war imposes on the conduct of sociological surveys. First of all, we pay attention to large-scale population movements. At the beginning of July, EU representatives estimated that 3.2-3.7 million Ukrainians - adults and children - are currently in these countries. There is no exact data on how many of them are adult citizens, but, most likely, it is about half. In addition, some Ukrainians left for other countries, except for the EU. In particular, a significant number of Ukrainians were forcibly deported to Russia and Belarus (according to some estimates, about 1 million). Among the approximately 30 million adult citizens (estimated at the time of the full-scale invasion), it can be roughly estimated that about 10% have left the country, and the method of telephone interviews cannot provide a reliable survey of these citizens. Even more citizens have become internally displaced persons, but they have a much smaller impact on the quality of telephone surveys, since almost all of these citizens have mobile phones and are reachable to participate in the survey (in fact, 16% of the respondents of this survey are IDPs).

Another important issue is the accessibility for the survey of the population of the territories that were occupied after February 24, 2022, due to the conduct of intensive military operations or due to interruptions in telephone communication. Now there is practically no connection. In May, 2.5-4% of respondents lived in these territories, now in the sample of residents of these territories - 0.2%. But it should be taken into account that a significant part of the population continues to leave these territories, therefore, most likely, no more than 1.5-2.5% of the total adult population of Ukraine are inaccessible due to communication problems.

In our opinion, a more significant impact on representativeness can have either a generally lower willingness of citizens with "pro-Russian" moods to participate in surveys, or the insincerity of those who did take part in the survey (given the obvious facts and prevailing opinions in the media regarding the Russian invasion , some citizens will not want to say what they really think "in public"). If to talk about the general willingness of respondents to participate in the survey, then in recent surveys we see either the same indicators or slightly lower (although it should be borne in mind that the lower willingness to participate of "pro-Russian"-minded citizens can be compensated by the higher willingness to participate of "pro-Ukrainian"-minded citizens).

We conducted a small methodological experiment in May, which shows that the citizens who are currently participating in the polls in terms of demographic characteristics and meaningful moods are close to those who participated in the polls until February 24, 2022. Preliminarily, we see some shift in the direction of "pro-Ukrainian"-minded citizens, which is reflected in up to 4-6% deviations for individual questions (in the direction of more frequent selection of answers that correspond to the "pro-Ukrainian" interpretation of events). In our opinion, this is a rather optimistic indicator in the current conditions. However, this experiment does not give an answer as to how sincere the respondents are now in their answers.

Taking into account our own observations and the experience of conducting surveys over many years, we still remain optimistic that, for the most part, respondents answer the questions sincerely. For example, the "imagined acquaintance" experiment shows little difference with the direct question. In addition, we assume that the demographic categories of citizens who have gone abroad and are unreachable for a telephone survey, at least now, do not differ very significantly in terms of a number of meaningful moods from similar demographic categories of citizens who have remained in Ukraine.

As a result, in our opinion, we should talk about a certain decrease in representativeness and an increase in error (in addition to the previously mentioned formal error, a certain systematic deviation is added due to the factors considered above), but at the same time, the obtained results still retain high representativeness and allow for a fairly reliable analysis of public moods of the population.