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

During September 20-27, 2024, the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) conducted its own all-Ukrainian public opinion survey "Omnibus", to which questions were added on the order of the public organization Center for Strategic Communications "Forum" regarding the attitude of Ukrainians to changes in the Government and to the creation of the Government national unity. By the method of telephone interviews (computer-assistedtelephoneinterviews, CATI) based on a random sample of mobile phone numbers (with random generation of phone numbers and subsequent statistical weighting), 1,001 respondents were interviewed in all regions of Ukraine (territory under the control of the Government of Ukraine). 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 controlled by the Government of Ukraine. The sample did not include residents of territories that are temporarily not controlled by the authorities of Ukraine (at the same time, part of the respondents are IDPs who moved from the occupied territories), and the survey was not conducted with citizens who went abroad 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 1.3) did not exceed 4.1% for indicators close to 50%, 3.5% for indicators close to 25%, 2.5% - for indicators close to 10%, 1.8% - for indicators close to 5%.

Under the conditions of war, in addition to the specified formal error, a certain systematic deviation is added. Factors that can affect the quality of results in "wartime" conditions were previously cited by the KIIS.

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

Recently, there have been changes in the Government of Ukraine, and we asked the respondents what changes they expect - will the Government's activities improve, worsen or nothing will change.

As can be seen in the graph below, the vast majority of Ukrainians - 74% - believe that nothing will change in the activities of the Government after the recent changes. 12% expect improvement in activity, 6% expect worsening in activity.

Graph 1. Recently, changes took place in the Government of Ukraine: some government officials were dismissed, and others were appointed in their place. In your opinion, how will this affect the activities of the Government? Government activity …

In all region of Ukraine[1] the majority believes that nothing will change in the activity of the Government.  

Graph2. Attitude to changes in the Government in the regional dimension

Among those who trust V. Zelenskyi, the majority (64%) also believe that nothing will change in the activities of the Government after the latest changes. At the same time, among those who trust him, there are indeed more who expect a certain improvement in the situation (19%).

At the same time, among those who do not trust V. Zelenskyi, 88% believe that nothing will change in the activities of the Government, and only 7% believe that the activities will get worse.

Graph3. Attitude towards changes in the Government depends on the trust in V. Zelenskyi

Another issue that is discussed from time to time (especially in the context of current government changes) is the creation of a Government of National Unity. In our survey, we formulated it as follows: do Ukrainians support a broad coalition of parliamentary and extra-parliamentary patriotic forces.

As can be seen in the graph below, 50% of Ukrainians have a positive attitude to the initiative to create a Government of National Unity as a broad unification of all patriotic forces in and outside the parliament. Only 13% have a negative attitude, and 33% have a neutral attitude.

Graph4. How do you feel about creating a Government of National Unity in Ukraine, which will represent a broad unification of all patriotic forces in the parliament and outside it (political parties, public organizations and movements, etc.)?

The situation is quite similar in all regions of Ukraine and about half of the population (46-53% depending on the region) have a favorable attitude towards this initiative.  

Graph5. Attitude to the creation of the Government of National Unity in the regional dimension

Both among those who trust V. Zelenskyi and among those who do not trust him, about half are favorable to the idea of the Government of National Unityі.

Graph6. Attitude towards the creation of the Government of National Unity depends on the trust in V. Zelenskyi

A. Hrushetskyi, comments on the survey results:

If after the full-scale invasion, the attitude towards the Government of Ukraine improved significantly, then the population's assessments began to deteriorate. In May 2024, KIIS conducted a survey for NDI, according to the results of which only 14% of Ukrainians rated the Government's activity well over the past year (another 34% rated the activity neither well nor poor, and 50% rated it poorly)[2] . In a situation where, for example, the option of elections is impossible due to war (and is unacceptable to the majority of the population, for which the priority is defense), individual personnel changes may look (among other things) as a way to "let off steam" and bring "freshness" to the perception of the Government by the public. At the moment, we see that there is neither significant enthusiasm for the changes, nor categorical rejection (obviously, since not enough time has passed yet).

The situation with the Government of National Unity is more complex and shows a significant dependence on the wording of the question. For example, at the end of 2023, we asked about the attitude towards such a Government, but specified that it would include the coalition of "Sluha Narodu", "YeS", "Batkivshchyna" and "Holos". In this design, 37% were positive and 19% were negative[3]. According to the results of the current survey, we see that when it is not about individual political forces, but rather about a broad association of various patriotic forces (in particular, outside the parliament), then support is much higher. In this context, we remind you that the majority of Ukrainians support criticism of the authorities, but want it to be within constructive limits. That is, in general, among Ukrainians there is a request for unity and support of cohesion as an important factor of defense.

Annex 1. Formulation of questions from the questionnaire

Recently, changes took place in the Government of Ukraine: some government officials were dismissed, and others were appointed in their place. In your opinion, how will this affect the activities of the Government? Government activity …

How do you feel about creating a Government of National Unity in Ukraine, which will represent a broad unification of all patriotic forces in the parliament and outside it (political parties, public organizations and movements, etc.)?