Some 70% of Ukrainians do not agree with the idea pursued by Russian leader Vladimir Putin that Russians and Ukrainians are one people. Only 12.5% of respondents support it. That’s according to a recent survey by the Razumkov Center.
More than 2,000 respondents in all regions of Ukraine, except for the temporarily occupied Crimea and non-gov’t-controlled areas of Donbas took part in the survey. The error margin does not exceed 2.3%, BBC News Ukraine reports.
“With the idea expressed in an op-ed that there was no and could not be any historical basis for ideas about a Ukrainian people separate from Russia and that the separation of Ukrainians and Belarusians as unique peoples was the result of Soviet national policy, 12.5% of Ukrainian citizens agree. Another 70% disagree (17% remain undecided),” the Razumkov Center reports.
The majority of residents in all regions of Ukraine disagreed with the “one nation” thesis: in the East 52% disagree and 22% agree, in the South 59% disagree and 19% agree, in the Center 74% disagree and 12% agree, and in the West it’s 90% to 0.4%, respectively.
By age, only 16% of those over 60 and 10% under 40 supported Putin’s idea. “Among Ukrainian-speaking respondents (those who speak Ukrainian at home) 7% share Putin’s position on the issue, among Russian-speakers it’s 21%, while in both groups the majority (81% and 55%, respectively) do not share it,” said the Razumkov Center.
Among ethnic Russians, 30% support the thesis, while among ethnic Ukrainians, it’s 11%. Most voters of the leading parties do not share the thesis of “one nation” either.
The “Rating” group showed different figures
On July 27, the Rating sociological group published a poll on the same topic. The figures differ, but the respondents were asked another type of question: “Recently, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that ‘Russians and Ukrainians are one people who belong to the same historical and spiritual space.’”
The majority of respondents (55%) disagreed with the statement on “one nation”, the study authors said. At the same time, 41% of Ukrainians consider themselves “one people” with the Russians. This view is most common in eastern Ukraine and among the faithful of the ROCinU (60% agree with this opinion). Among the believers with the OCU, 33% of respondents consider Ukrainians and Russians to be “one people”, while 65% answered this question negatively.
In the recent poll by the Razumkov Center, there are no words about the “historical and spiritual space” that could have influenced the response of some Orthodox believers. After all, the ROCinU is part of the Russian Orthodox Church, and it is its members who mostly agreed with Putin in Rating’s poll. When there was no mention of spirituality in the question, the figures turned out to be significantly different.
