Half of Ukrainians believe in developed democratic future for the country, one third in 'special path' – Razumkov Center survey

A relative majority (45%) of respondents believe that "in the future, Ukraine will be a highly developed, democratic, influential European country," while 33% hold the opinion that Ukraine will be a country following a special path of development.

This is evidenced by the results of a sociological survey conducted by the sociological service of the Razumkov Center from November 11-18 as part of the project "Ukraine: Socio-Political Challenges of the Transition from War to Peace and Post-War Recovery," supported by the Representation of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Ukraine, and presented at a press conference at the Interfax-Ukraine agency on Tuesday.

At the same time, only a small portion of respondents anticipate the realization of negative scenarios. Thus, 5.5% of those surveyed believe that Ukraine will be a poorly developed appendage of the West, 3% think that Ukraine will forever become a "third world" country, undeveloped and uninfluential, 1% believe that Ukraine will be a poorly developed appendage of Russia, and 1% think that Ukraine will disappear as an independent state. Another 0.4% answered that they are "not interested in the future of this country."

Residents of the Western (53%) and Eastern (52%) regions most often believe that "in the future, Ukraine will be a highly developed, democratic, influential European country" (in the Central region - 37%, in the Southern region - 41%).

The younger the respondents, the more often they believe that "in the future, Ukraine will be a highly developed, democratic, influential European country" (the share of such individuals increases from 39% among respondents aged 60 and older to 51% among youth under 30).

This is how 54% of supporters of EU accession see its future, compared to only 17% of opponents of EU accession. Among opponents of EU accession, nearly a third see Ukraine's future in a negative light (in this group of respondents, the combined share of those who believe that "Ukraine will be a poorly developed appendage of either the West or Russia," "Ukraine will forever become a 'third world' country, undeveloped and uninfluential," or "Ukraine will disappear as an independent state" is 31.5%). However, a relative majority (38%) among opponents of EU accession are those who believe that Ukraine will be a country following a special path of development (among supporters of EU accession, 30% hold this view).

The survey was conducted in all government-controlled regions of Ukraine among 2,008 respondents aged 18 and older using the face-to-face method with a stratified multi-stage sample, utilizing random selection in the early stages and a quota method for selecting respondents in the final stage. The structure of the sample reproduces the demographic structure of the adult population of the territories where the survey was conducted, as of the beginning of 2022, by age, gender, and type of settlement. The theoretical sampling error does not exceed 2.3%. Additional systematic deviations of the sample may be caused by the consequences of the aggression of Russia, in particular, the forced evacuation of citizens.