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

During February 17-23, 2024, the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) conducted its own all-Ukrainian public opinion survey "Omnibus". Bythemethodofcomputer-assistedtelephoneinterviews(CATI) based on a random sample of mobile phone numbers (with random generation of phone numbers and subsequent statistical weighting), 1,052 respondents living in all regions of Ukraine (except AR of Crimea) were interviewed. 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 (within the boundaries controlled by the authorities of Ukraine until February 24, 2022). The sample did not include residents of territories temporarily not controlled by the authorities of Ukraine, 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 1.1) did not exceed 3.4% for indicators close to 50%, 3.0% for indicators close to 25%, 2.1% - for indicators close to 10%, 1.5% - for indicators close to 5%.

Under conditions of war, in addition to the specified formal error, a certain systematic deviation is added. In particular, if in May 2022, 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, not a single respondent who currently lives in occupied settlements was included in the sample (along with this, out of a total of 1,052 respondents, 33 respondents lived in a settlement that is currently occupied until February 24, 2022). It is important to note that although the views of the respondents who lived in the occupation were somewhat different, the general trends 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, which were cited by KIIS earlier.

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

In the media space, you can find a lot of opinions and advice from "experts", which should be the basis of Ukraine's success in the war. We asked the respondents a relevant question and asked them to choose the 3 most important from the list of nine possible success factors. The order of reading the answer options for each respondent was randomly determined by the computer, and therefore the results do not depend on the order of reading the options.

The majority of Ukrainians - 57% - believe that the most important factor for success is the proper support of the West with weapons, finances, and sanctions. Earlier this week, we published results on perceptions of support of the West[1]. Among the respondents who consider proper support of the West to be the most important factors (if they are taken as 100%), 42% feel that "the West is getting tired of Ukraine and its support becomes weaker; The West wants to press for Ukraine to make concessions to Russia").

Next in importance are higher efficiency and transparency of Ukrainian authorities (33%), lack of conflict between the political leadership and the military command (32%) and cooperation between the authorities and civil society (26%).

About 16-21% of respondents believe that Ukraine should be helped by the cooperation of the government and the opposition and the creation of a broad coalition of patriotic forces, the reduction of support for Russia by its allies and the higher efficiency of the Ukrainian military command.

Only 8% believe that the Russian opposition will be able to help Ukraine due to the destabilization of the situation in Russia.

Also, only 7% of Ukrainians are ready to delegate to the military-political leadership extraordinary powers and the ability to break laws in order to quickly make the necessary decisions.

Graph 1. What do you think from this list is the most important for Ukraine to achieve success in the war with Russia? Choose up to 3 answers.

In the table below, the data are given in the regional dimension. In all regions, the majority of respondents primarily speak of adequate support from the West. At the same time, in all regions, the conditional second place is the higher efficiency and transparency of the government and the preservation of social harmony (especially between the military command and the political leadership).

Table 1. Perception of factors of Ukraine's success in the war in the regional dimension

A. Hrushetskyi, comments on the survey results:

KIIS and other companies in various formulations asked questions about the factors of success in the war, and it can be confidently stated that the majority of Ukrainians are fully aware of the critical importance of fair support of the West.

The fact that the optimism of Ukrainians is becoming more and more restrained is a direct consequence of the problems with a stable and sufficient supply of weapons from the Western allies (the situation in the USA is especially worrying for Ukrainians). Spreading the impression that the West is allegedly tired of Ukraine and is ready to pressure Ukraine for concessions undermines faith in Victory (and as will be shown in further publications, this is closely related to readiness for territorial concessions). In addition, insufficient and untimely Western support also creates a context of public moods, within which the perception of other internal problems of the country is sharpened (for example, the issue of improving mobilization processes would be perceived much better if Ukrainians were convinced of the stable transfer of modern weapons). Although a number of Ukrainian friends are unwaveringly making really significant efforts, some of our other partners seem to be talking more about good words than doing good deeds.

At the same time, it is important to note that the results also indicate a tangible demand for social unity (especially Ukrainians are worried about possible conflicts between the political authorities and military commanders). And it is also important to understand that many Ukrainians expect greater efficiency and transparency from the political leadership (first of all, this is a matter of fighting corruption). Both of these factors require sincere, open, high-quality, reasoned, systematic communication between the authorities and the public.

Annex 1. Formulation of questions from the questionnaire

What do you think from this list is the most important for Ukraine to achieve success in the war with Russia? Choose up to 3 answers. RANDOMIZATION OF THE ORDER. UP TO 3 ANSWERS.