The press release was prepared by Volodymyr Paniotto

In general, Ukrainians treat holidays with love and respect, only 1% of respondents do not treat any official holidays as important or favorite.

The main trends indicate the stability of traditional religious holidays, the decline in popularity of some holidays of the Soviet past, and noticeable changes in attitudes towards state holidays, especially after the start of the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022.

The majority of the population of Ukraine (approximately 70%) celebrates Christmas and Easter as the most popular holidays, followed by Independence Day of Ukraine (54%), New Year (50%), and Defenders of Ukraine Day (44%).

The attitude towards International Women's Day on March 8 has deteriorated, its popularity has been decreasing in recent years. While back in 2017 this holiday was one of the most beloved, celebrated as a favorite by approximately half of the population (49%), now only one in four (23%)

During February 4-9, 2025, the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) conducted its own all-Ukrainian public opinion survey "Omnibus". By the method of telephone interviews (computer-assisted telephone interviews, CATI) based on a random sample of mobile phone numbers (with random generation of phone numbers and subsequent statistical weighting) in all regions of Ukraine (the territory controlled by the Government of Ukraine), 1,000 respondents were surveyed. The survey was conducted with adult (aged 18 and older) citizens of Ukraine who, at the time of the survey, lived in the territory of Ukraine controlled by the Government of Ukraine. The sample did not include residents of territories temporarily not controlled by the Ukrainian authorities (at the same time, some of the respondents are IDPs who moved from the occupied territories), and the survey was not conducted with citizens who left 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 1.3) did not exceed 4.1% for indicators close to 50%, 3.5% for indicators close to 25%, 2.5% for indicators close to 10%, 1.8% for indicators close to 5%.

Under the conditions of war, in addition to the specified formal error, a certain systematic deviation is added. Factors that may affect the quality of results in "wartime" conditions were previously cited by KIIS.

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 most popular holidays of 2025

According to the research data (see Table 1), the most popular remain Christmas (70%) та Easter (69%). They have consistently occupied leading positions in recent years, which indicates the significant role of religion in the cultural life of Ukrainians.

Table 1. What holidays are the most popular (important or favorite) among the population of Ukraine, February 2025

Next comes Independence Day of Ukraine (54%) as one of the main holidays of Ukrainians, which is a testament to national pride and patriotism.   New Year, associated with Christmas, is traditionally popular among Ukrainians. But before its popularity was the same as Christmas (about 80%), and now 50%. The next most popular holiday is the Day of Defenders of Ukraine (44%), which indicates significant respect for military personnel and gratitude for the protection and heroic fight against the enemy in defending the country's independence and sovereignty. According to our other research, the level of trust in the Armed Forces of Ukraine is the highest among all social institutions (92%), so its popularity could be even higher. Perhaps the problem is that this is a relatively young holiday, which was introduced in 2014. The traditions of celebrating February 23 as Defender of the Motherland Day were considered a legacy of the Soviet Army Day and have actually disappeared, and new traditions have not yet developed. International Women's Day (23%) continued the trend of gradually decreasing support among Ukrainians. Next comes Trinity (22%), the popularity of other holidays is less than 20%.

Dynamics of changes in the popularity of holidays (2021-2025)

A comparative analysis of data for 2021-2025 is given in Table 2, dynamics since 2013 in the appendix)

Table 2. How the popularity of holidays changed from 2021 to 2025.

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

The data obtained demonstrate the following main trends:

1. The growing role of national holidays.
   • Independence Day of Ukraine: from 37% in 2021 to 63% in 2023, peaking in 2024 (64%) and declining to 54% in 2025.
   • Defenders of Ukraine Day: from 29% in 2021 to 58% in 2024, then declining to 44% in 2025.

Some decrease in the popularity of state national holidays is most likely due to the fact that the so-called “rallying around the flag” effect (uniting citizens around the country’s leadership and increasing people’s solidarity to resist the enemy) decreased in the third year of the war has diminished due to the emergence of fatigue among part of the population and the understanding that the war is long. Nevertheless, all these indicators significantly exceed the pre-war ones.

2. Stability of religious holidays.
   • Christmas and Easter remain in first place in popularity with minor fluctuations.
3. Decreasing support for Soviet heritage holidays.
   • Victory Day: from 30% in 2021 to 11% in 2024 and 12% in 2025.
   • Labor Day (May 1): from 12% in 2021 to 5% in 2025.
4. Stabilization of the New Year.
   • Its popularity decreased from 55% in 2021 to 47% in 2024, but in 2025 it has 50%, which indicates a stabilization of moods towards this holiday.

Attitude towards International Women's Day

Graph 1 shows the general dynamics of attitudes towards this holiday.

The popularity of March 8 has been steadily declining – from 49% in 2017 to 21% in 2024. However, in 2025, a slight (within the sampling error) increase was recorded – to 23%. This may indicate a certain stabilization of the attitude towards the holiday after a period of sharp decline. Despite the general decline, it remains important for a part of society. There is also some regional differentiation by the region in which the respondent lived before the start of the full-scale war: in the West, the holiday is popular among 6% of the population, in the Center among 24%, in the South – 32% and in the East – 40%. Gender and age do not affect the popularity of this holiday.

Volodymyr Paniotto, comment on the survey results regarding the celebration of March 8

The question about which holidays are the most important or favorite depends on the date of the survey. The closer to this holiday, the more often respondents mention it. Therefore, to study the dynamics, we usually ask about holidays every year at the same time (in February). In addition, in recent years, due to Covid, and now due to the war, we conduct the survey not by face-to-face interviews, but by telephone, which also has a certain impact on the results (see more details https://www.kiis.com.ua/?lang=ukr&cat=reports&id=1036&page=1&t=9).

Graph 1 shows the dynamics of the percentage of people who consider International Women's Day on March 8 to be their favorite or important holiday. From time to time, due to the initiative of some deputies to cancel this holiday, discussions are held about whether it makes sense to do so. From my point of view, unity is more important than ever for our society, and unnecessary discussions on unprincipled issues only harm the fight against the enemy. In addition, in general, in order to cancel certain holidays that correspond to long-standing traditions, it is necessary to first convince the population and form a positive attitude towards this decision. As long as there are more than 10-15% of people who are supporters of this holiday, the initiative to cancel it is inappropriate, and now there are 23% of supporters

Appendix 1. Formulation of questions from the questionnaire

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

Appendix 2. Tables

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

Table Д1. Dynamics in Ukraine as a whole from 2013 to 2025, %

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