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

During January 3-11, 2023, the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) conducted its own all-Ukrainian public opinion survey "Omnibus". At the request of the Embassy of the State of Israel, questions related to the attitude of the population of Ukraine to Israel were added to the questionnaire. 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), 2,002 respondents living in all regions of Ukraine (except the AR of Crimea) were interviewed. The survey was conducted with adult (at the age of 18 and older) citizens of Ukraine who lived on the territory of Ukraine at the time of the survey (within the limits 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 districts of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts), and the survey was not conducted with citizens who left the country after February 24, 2022).

Formally, in normal circumstances, the statistical error of such sample (with a probability of 0.95 and taking into account the design effect 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%.

In December 2021, KIIS already asked some questions in its similar survey. For such questions, the mood dynamics is given.

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 telephone numbers was random), now, due to the occupiers turning off the telephone connection,we managed to interview only 5 respondents (from 2002) who currently live in occupied settlements. It is important to note that although the views of the respondents who lived in the occupation were somewhat different, the general tendenies were quite similar. That is, the impossibility of interviewing such respondents 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.

The majority of respondents - 52% - consider Israel a friendly country. 12.5% of respondents do not think so, and another 36% of respondents are undecided.

Compared to December 2021, from 28% to 36%, there was an increase in those who have an uncertain attitude towards Israel. Due to this, those who consider Israel a friendly country decreased from 55% to 52%, and those who do not think so decreased from 17% to 12.5%. The balance of positive-negative ratings has practically not changed: in December 2021 it was +38%, and as of January 2023 it is +39%.

Graph 1. Do you consider Israel a friendly country?

64% of respondents support Israel in conflict with Iran, and this indicator increased from 27.5% in December 2021. Iran is supported by 1% (it was the same before). On the other hand, those who do not support either party decreased from 54% to 16%.

Graph 2. In the diplomatic conflict between Israel and Iran, which side do you support … ?

48% of Ukrainians believe that Israel supports Ukraine (increase of the indicator from 25% in December 2021). Believe that Israel supports Russia - 8% (previously it was 5%). At the same time, from 36% to 20%, those who believe that Israel does not support either side decreased, and from 34.5% to 23.5%, those who do not have a definite opinion on this issue decreased.

Graph 3. In the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which side do you think Israel supports?

A little more than half of the respondents (53%) believe that Israel provides some support to Ukraine. Most of the respondents (48% among all) talk about humanitarian aid. 17% talk about military information and knowledge, 8% talk about military equipment and weapons. At the same time, only 11% are convinced that Israel does not help Ukraine at all (the remaining 36% do not have the information).

Graph 4. And for the moment, does Israel support Ukraine efforts with... ?

the sum is greater than 100%, as the respondent could choose several answers

For 33% of Ukrainians, the position of Israeli officials (that providing weapons to Ukraine can endanger Israel itself) is understandable and acceptable. Slightly more respondents consider the position unacceptable - 43% (of them, 17% at least understand it, while 26% do not understand it and consider it unacceptable). In addition, a quarter of respondents (24%) were undecided.

Graph 5. As of now, Israel does not provide military capabilities to Ukraine. The Israeli press reported that senior officials in Israel are interested in supporting Ukraine and transferring weapons to it, but in their estimation such an action could endanger Israel. What do you think about Israel decision?

87% of Ukrainians are convinced that Israeli technologies and knowledge can be useful for the post-war recovery of Ukraine

Graph 6. Thinking for a moment about the future. Do you think that Israeli technologies and knowledge can be useful for Ukraine’s post war recovery?

A. Hrushetskyi, comments on the survey results:

Ukraine maintains a fairly positive attitude towards Israel, despite noticeable dissatisfaction with the position on providing Ukraine with weapons. The current public opinion of Ukrainians regarding Israel is actually strategically balanced, since potentially (and in some practical dimensions already right now) Israel is an important partner for Ukraine. Maintaining a favorable attitude towards Israel among the population of Ukraine is an important argument for continuing the dialogue between Ukraine and Israel regarding the realization of Ukraine's national interests.

Annex 1. Formulation of questions from the questionnaire

Do you consider Israel a friendly country?

 (% among all respondents)

In the diplomatic conflict between Israel and Iran, which side do you support… ?

 (% among all respondents)

In the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which side do you think Israel supports?

 (% among all respondents)

Thinking for a moment about the future. Do you think that Israeli technologies and knowledge can be useful for Ukraine’s post war recovery?

 (% among all respondents)

And for the moment, does Israel support Ukraine efforts with... ?

 (% among all respondents)

As of now, Israel does not provide military capabilities to Ukraine. The Israeli press reported that senior officials in Israel are interested in supporting Ukraine and transferring weapons to it, but in their estimation such an action could endanger Israel. What do you think about Israel decision?

 (% 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 recent 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. As of December, the UN estimates the number of Ukrainian refugees at almost 7.9 million. Obviously, due to various reasons, it is difficult to consider these data unequivocally accurate, but in general, the quite significant scale of departure from the country is understandable. There is no exact data on how many of them are adult citizens, but, most likely, it is about half. Among about 30 million adult citizens (estimated at the time of the full-scale invasion), it can be roughly estimated that about 15-20% have left the country, and it is impossible to reliably survey these citizens using telephone interviews. 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, 12% of the respondents of this survey are IDPs).

Another important problem 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 - only 5 respondent out of 2002 surveyed. According to our estimates, the territory occupied by Russia as of the beginning of September (occupied after February 24, 2022) accounted for about 9% of the entire adult population. Taking into account the mass exodus of the population from these territories (most likely, we are talking about at least half of the population), as well as the fact that significant territories of Kharkiv and Kherson regions were liberated from this period, we estimate that no more than 3-5% of the total adult population of Ukraine were unavailable due to communication problems.

In our opinion, a more significant impact on representativeness can be either a generally lower willingness of citizens with "pro-Russian" attitudes to participate in surveys, or the insincerity of those who did take part in the survey (taking into account 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 somewhat lower (although it should be borne in mind that the lower willingness to participate of "pro-Russian" citizens can be compensated by the higher willingness to participate of "pro-Ukrainian"-minded citizens).

We conducted a methodical experiment in May, which shows that the citizens who are currently participating in the surveys in terms of demographic characteristics and meaningful attitudes are close to those who participated in the surveys 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, in the current conditions, this is a rather optimistic indicator.

However, this experiment does not give an answer as to how sincere the respondents are now in their answers. To assess the sincerity of responses to sensitive questions, in July we conducted another experiment using the "imagined acquaintance" method. The results showed that the respondents generally answered the survey questions honestly. That is, we have reason to say that during the interview, the respondents really answer our questions sincerely.