The press release was prepared by Volodymyr Paniotto

During February 17-23, 2024, the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) conducted its own all-Ukrainian public opinion survey "Omnibus". 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), 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 controlled by the Government of Ukraine. 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 a fairly reliable analysis of the public moods of the population.

The research showed that in general Ukrainians treat holidays with love and respect, if a year ago 2% of respondents did not treat any official holidays as important or favorite, now there are none left at all.

According to our research data (see Table 1), the majority of the population of Ukraine celebrates Christmas and Easter as the most popular holidays, with percentages of 70% and 68%, respectively.

This is followed by the Independence Day of Ukraine (64%) and the Day of Defenders of Ukraine (58%).

The New Year, which is solemnly celebrated all over the world and which shared the first place with Christmas and Easter, is now only in fifth place with a percentage of 47%.

Constitution Day, International Women's Day, and Trinity Day have 28%, 21%, and 17%, respectively.

The least popular holidays this year are Victory Day (May 9) and Labor Day (May 1) - only 11% and 4% of Ukrainians celebrate these dates as favorite or important.

What changes have occurred in the popularity of May holidays since 2010? In graph 1, we see the dynamics of attitudes to these two holidays (attitudes to all holidays in the appendix, see Table Д1).

Graph 1.  How the popularity of Labor Day and Victory Day has changed from 2010 to 2023.

Which holidays are the most popular (important or favorite), %.

The attitude towards Labor Day on May 1 from 2010 to 2021 did not change significantly, it was one of the least popular holidays, only 12% of Ukrainians in 2010 and the same number in 2021 considered it the most important or favorite. In 2023, the number of supporters of this holiday fell to 5% and it is now the least favorite holiday among Ukrainians. In 2024, the ratio continued to decline to 4%.

The attitude towards Victory Day on May 9 has undergone significant changes. In 2010, it was one of the most important holidays, 58% of the population thought so. By 2021, its popularity had halved and only 30% considered it the most important holiday. And in 2023, only 13% of supporters of this holiday remained, fewer supporters only on Labor Day. In 2024, supporters became even fewer — only 11%. Obviously, this is connected with the war, with the fact that Victory Day is very actively celebrated in Russia as a militaristic aggressive holiday.

Annex 1. Formulation of the question from the questionnaire

Which of these state holidays of Ukraine are the most important or favorite for you? Please specify no more than 5 holidays. NO MORE THAN 5 ANSWER OPTIONS

Annex 2. Tables

Which of these holidays are the most important or favorite for you? Please specify no more than 5 holidays.

Table D1. Dynamics in Ukraine as a whole from 2013 to 2024, %

*) telephone survey (CATI), in previous years there was a F2F interview