Ukrainians largely reject Russia's demands on occupied territories and NATO accession, survey finds
More than 90% of Ukrainians consider Russia's demands for recognition of the occupied territories of Ukraine as Russian territories in exchange for cessation of aggression to be "unacceptable." According to the survey conducted by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation in collaboration with the Razumkov Center's sociological service, with the support of the Matra program from August 9-15, 2023, only 4.7% of respondents found such demands "acceptable."
Nearly 74% of those surveyed found the demand to refuse Ukraine's accession to NATO to be "unacceptable," while 80% found the reduction in the number of Ukrainian Armed Forces in peacetime "unacceptable." Only 18% and 13% found these demands "acceptable," respectively.
Ukrainians also consider the demand for the Russian language to be granted official/state status in Ukraine (75%) and the rejection of decommunization policies (69%) to be "unacceptable."
"The respondents in the South and, to a greater extent, in the East demonstrate a slightly higher willingness to make concessions (aside from territorial ones). However, even in these regions, the majority of respondents consider any of the discussed concessions to be "unacceptable,"" the press release notes.
The face-to-face survey was conducted in 22 regions of Ukraine and in Kyiv among 2,019 respondents. The structure of the selected sample reproduces the demographic structure of the adult population in the surveyed territories as of the beginning of 2022 (by age, gender, and settlement type). The theoretical sampling error does not exceed 2.3%.