The press release was prepared by Anton Hrushetskyi, the Deputy Director of KIIS

From December 4 to 27, 2022, the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) conducted its own all-Ukrainian public opinion survey "Omnibus". By order of the Association "Professional Association of Pyrotechnicians of Ukraine", questions related to the use of fireworks and salutes were added to the questionnaire. 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), 2,005 respondents living in all regions of Ukraine (except the Autonomous Republic 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 communication therefore, we managed to interview only 3 respondents (from 2005) who currently live in occupied settlements. 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 moods of the population.

24% of respondents personally used some kind of pyrotechnics during 2021 (i.e. the last year before a full-scale invasion). At the same time, we are mainly talking about use only for major holidays.

Graph 1. Did you personally use pyrotechnic products (clapperboards, firecrackers, salutes, fireworks, etc.) during celebrations during the past year 2021?

During the period of martial law in Ukraine, the use of fireworks and salutes is prohibited. Respondents were asked two questions about whether it is appropriate to continue the ban on the use of fireworks and salutes after the Victory. First, the respondents had to answer whether the ban on the use of fireworks and salutes should be continued at all after the end of martial law. Then, if the respondent answered "yes" (that is, supported the extension of such a ban), an additional question was asked for what period the ban should be extended - for a certain period or forever. The graph below summarizes the answers to both questions.

In general, the majority of respondents (61%) believe that after the end of martial law, the permission to use fireworks and salutes should be restored, although there are differences in terms of when it can be allowed again: 29% believe that it can be done right away, 7% - within 3 months after the end of martial law, 25% - within 1 year after the end of martial law. Insist on banning the use of fireworks and salutes forever - only 21%. The remaining 18% have an uncertain attitude regarding the issue of banning the use of fireworks and salutes.

Graph2. Attitude to the ban on the use of fireworks and salutes after the end of martial law

More than half of Ukrainians (55%) answered that the Victory over Russia they will celebrate with fireworks and salutes. 

Graph3. Will you celebrate our Victory with fireworks and salutes after the end of the war with Russia?

Annex 1. Formulation of questions from the questionnaire

Ф1. Did you personally use pyrotechnic products (clapperboards, firecrackers, salutes, fireworks, etc.) during celebrations during the past year 2021?

Ф2. Will you celebrate our Victory with fireworks and salutes after the end of the war with Russia?

Ф3. During the period of martial law in Ukraine, the authorities introduced a ban on the sale and use of fireworks and salutes (except firecrackers and sparklers). Do you support the continuation of the ban on the sale and use of fireworks and salutes (except firecrackers and sparklers) after the end of martial law in Ukraine?

QUESTIONS FOR THOSE WHO ANSWERED "YES" TO THE QUESTION Ф3

Ф4. For what period, in your opinion, should a ban be imposed on the sale and use of fireworks and salutes (except firecrackers and sparklers) after the end of martial law in Ukraine?

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 recent 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. As of December, the UN estimates the number of Ukrainian refugees at almost 7.9 million. Obviously, due to various reasons, it is difficult to consider these data unequivocally accurate, but in general, the quite significant scale of departure from the country is understandable. There is no exact data on how many of them are adult citizens, but, most likely, it is about half. Among about 30 million adult citizens (estimated at the time of the full-scale invasion), it can be roughly estimated that about 15-20% have left the country, and it is impossible to reliably survey these citizens using telephone interviews. 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, 12% of the respondents of this survey are IDPs).

Another important problem 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 - only 3 respondents out of 2005 surveyed. According to our estimates, the territory occupied by Russia as of the beginning of September (occupied after February 24, 2022) accounted for about 9% of the entire adult population. Taking into account the mass exodus of the population from these territories (most likely, we are talking about at least half of the population), as well as the fact that significant territories of Kharkiv and Kherson regions were liberated from this period, we estimate that no more than 3-5% of the total adult population of Ukraine were unavailable due to communication problems.

In our opinion, a more significant impact on representativeness can be either a generally lower willingness of citizens with "pro-Russian" attitudes to participate in surveys, or the insincerity of those who did take part in the survey (taking into account 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 somewhat lower (although it should be borne in mind that the lower willingness to participate of "pro-Russian" citizens can be compensated by the higher willingness to participate of "pro-Ukrainian"-minded citizens).

We conducted a methodical experiment in May, which shows that the citizens who are currently participating in the surveys in terms of demographic characteristics and meaningful attitudes are close to those who participated in the surveys 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, in the current conditions, this is a rather optimistic indicator.

However, this experiment does not give an answer as to how sincere the respondents are now in their answers. To assess the sincerity of responses to sensitive questions, in July we conducted another experiment using the "imagined acquaintance" method. The results showed that the respondents generally answered the survey questions honestly. That is, we have reason to say that during the interview, the respondents really answer our questions sincerely.