Peace talks and the fight against corruption — two priority directions for the state: results of a nationwide survey

From 30 January to 16 February this year the CATI studio of the Institute of Sociology collected data as part of a joint project with the European research agency ExtremeScan (https://www.extremescan.eu/). For a sample of 1,204 respondents, the statistical margin of error at a 95% confidence level and a design effect of 1.1 does not exceed 3.0%.

The study addresses peace talks, attitudes towards the actions of the authorities, and a theme no less important for Ukraine — corruption. This presentation sets out only part of the results obtained; the main part (on the peace talks) will be presented and discussed on one of the national television channels shortly.

A comment from Serhii Dembitskyi, Deputy Director for Research of the Institute of Sociology of the NAS of Ukraine, on the data presented:

“The rhetoric of the United States (in the person of D. Trump) about concluding a peace agreement between Ukraine and the Russian Federation has, throughout the whole year of Trump's peacemaking activity, failed to inspire the trust of Ukrainians, for whom its imbalance in favour of Russia's interests and of his own advantage is obvious. V. Zelenskyi's resistance to pressure from the United States and Russia and his firm position in the talks are assessed positively by an absolute majority of the population. This factor is probably one of the main sources of approval today for V. Zelenskyi's performance as president.

This does not prevent Ukrainians from remaining highly critical in general, and especially on questions of corruption. Responsibility here, however, is distributed between different levels of government and different institutional structures. Assessments of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, for instance, are balanced between positive and negative. On the whole, from the standpoint of public opinion, corruption is problem number one inside the country. It cannot, of course, be more important than the preservation of statehood, yet Ukrainians understand that it is corruption that is the destructive factor threatening Ukraine's statehood in strategic terms. It is important to add that, despite the population's scepticism about the state's ability to overcome corruption among the highest-ranking officials, Ukrainians insist on the usefulness of public criticism of the authorities, not least for the sake of fighting corruption.”

The full presentation is here.