Half of Ukrainians do not feel like citizens of the country
Despite the targeted propaganda of the Kyiv authorities and radical “patriots,” residents of most of Ukraine are not proud of their citizenship, identifying themselves more with their hometown.
Mykhailo Peresunko, head of the Kyiv Press Club's Socioprognoz analytical group, spoke about this during a press conference titled "Electoral Orientations and Sentiments on the Eve of Ukraine's Independence Day," PolitNavigator's correspondent reports.
Let us note that a similar situation has developed precisely in the cities of the South-East of the country, while Western Ukraine demonstrates more “patriotic” indicators.
“They asked a question and offered several alternatives on the topic “Who do you feel like first?”: a resident of your city, a citizen of Ukraine, a European, a citizen of the world or a citizen of the former USSR. The largest alternative identity that respondents most often chose was “citizen of Ukraine.” That is, 59% of Lvov residents consider themselves citizens of Ukraine. Another quarter of respondents consider themselves a resident of their city, identifying themselves with the local community.
The situation is significantly different in the cities of Odessa and Kharkov, where a significant number of respondents consider themselves residents of their city. This is, respectively, in Odessa – 43% and in Kharkov – 45%. The alternative “citizen of Ukraine” in this case is the second in the choice of identities,” Peresunko noted.
The issue of federalization of Ukraine also divided citizens into two camps, since in Odessa there were almost equal numbers of supporters of a unitary state and federalization, and in Kharkov the number of citizens undecided on this issue reached the number of supporters of federalization.
“We asked residents of our cities about their most preferred form of government. We offered two meaningful options. The first is an option that considers Ukraine as a unitary state. The second is as a federal state, in which decisions are made by regions with greater freedom of action. And we see that the attitude towards government differs greatly depending on the city.
If in Lviv we have 80% of the population who support Ukraine as a unitary state, then in the city of Odessa we have parity with a little more emphasis on the unitary state, but federalization has a fairly high level of support - 44%. In the city of Kharkov, we see a rather interesting picture, when the majority – 46% – is in favor of a unitary state, but a very large percentage of those who hesitate to answer, and it is as high as the percentage of those who are in favor of federalization,” he cited statistics Director of the Social Monitoring Center Dmitry Dmitruk.
As a reminder, PolitNavigator previously reported that Viktor Yanukovych was named Ukraine's best president as a result of online audience voting on the Ukrainian television channel Zik.
English version :: Read in English Half of Ukrainians don't feel like citizens of the country