Survey: 78 percents of Ukrainians support joining NATO
A hypothetical referendum on NATO membership for Ukraine shows that almost 78% of Ukrainians support membership in the Alliance.
This information was obtained from a survey conducted by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiative Foundation and the Razumkov Centre Sociological Service in May.
Among those who declared their willingness to participate in the hypothetical referendum in May 2016, 77.7% of respondents would support NATO membership, 17.4% would be against, the rest are undecided.
The survey showed recent growth in the number of people who support Ukraine joining NATO; in 2012 only 26.2% would have voted in favor of joining the Alliance.
However, compared with last year the number of those who would have participated in the referendum decreased; in May it was 58.2%, down from 63.6% in 2015. If these numbers were calculated as a percentage of the total number of voters, instead of only those who have expressed a willingness to vote, membership in NATO would be supported by almost 48% of Ukrainians.
In addition, as of May this year, 43% of Ukrainians think that NATO membership is a main guarantee of national security. Another 25% believe that security is guaranteed by the non-aligned status of Ukraine.
Geographically, NATO membership is mostly supported in the western regions, where 78% of respondents believe that the Alliance is the best guarantee of security, followed by the center regions, where 46% reported as much. The south is dominated by the supporters of the non-aligned status; 44% of respondents said that the Alliance would guarantee security.
The survey was conducted from May 11 to May 16, 2016. 2,016 respondents aged 18 years were interviewed in all regions of Ukraine except the Crimea and the occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions.