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

During July 6 to 20, 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 regions 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 phone numbers was random), now due to the occupiers turning off telephone communication we managed to interview fewer respondents living in occupied settlements, in particular, their number is 0.2%. 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 to interview such respondents now 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.

Although there is a consensus in Ukrainian society about joining the EU (81% support joining the EU), at the same time, 62% of respondents generally hold the opinion that Ukraine should defend its interests and not agree to certain demands, even if it delays the acquisition full membership.

At the same time, 31% of respondents believe that Ukraine should approve all necessary laws and fulfill all EU requirements in order to become a member of the organization as soon as possible.

Graph 1. With which point of view do you agree to a greater extent?

On graph 2, the data are shown in regional dimension[1]. As we showed earlier, there is consensus and support for European integration among the regions. We also see that the majority of residents in all regions would rather choose the option to defend their interests and not agree to certain demands, even if this would delay joining the EU.

Graph2. Fulfillment of EU requirements in the regional dimension

Graph 3 shows data among those who would vote "for" / "against" / "would not vote" / "undecided" in the referendum on joining the EU. Even among those who support joining the EU, the majority (59%) believe that it is necessary to defend interests and not agree to individual demands.

Graph3. Compliance with EU requirements depending on how the respondent would vote in the referendum on joining the EU

A. Hrushetskyi, comments on the survey results:

It is important to understand exactly what this question is measuring. The desire to join the EU definitely dominates among the population of Ukraine. However, the results discussed in this press release show that this aspiration is not completely unconditional and, in general, Ukrainians feel that there are certain issues that require a fair and careful discussion with the EU.

 At the same time, we would like to emphasize that with regard to individual requirements of the EU, if we were to describe specific requirements to the respondents, the absolute majority of Ukrainians would most likely express full agreement and believe that they must be fulfilled unconditionally. In addition, if Ukrainians are ready for a certain "postponement" of membership, they are unlikely to be ready to wait very long. That is, such results do not give an "indulgence" to politicians, journalists and experts to delay the implementation or distort the fair and reasonable demands of the EU to Ukraine.

From our many years of experience in monitoring public moods, we can reasonably assume that the absolute majority of Ukrainians would agree with the demands to fight corruption, ensure fair justice and the rule of law. The same applies to the decrease in the influence of oligarchs on politics in Ukraine. At the same time, it is very possible that citizens would demand more thorough negotiations on issues of a socio-economic nature. And also possible resistance would be caused by demands related to issues of values and identity (let's hope that none of the EU members will demand from Ukraine something similar to what Bulgaria demands from North Macedonia).

Annex 1. Formulation of questions from the questionnaire

Some people believe that now Ukraine should pass all the necessary laws and fulfill all the requirements of the European Union, just to become a member of the European Union as soon as possible.

Other people believe that Ukraine should defend its interests and not agree to certain demands of the European Union, even if it delays Ukraine's acquisition of full membership.

And which point do you agree with to a greater extent? RANDOMIZATION OF STATEMENT READING

(% 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, 14% 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.