upport among Ukrainians for joining the North Atlantic Alliance as the best guarantee of security for Ukraine is declining, while support for more pragmatic options is growing, according to the results of a survey conducted by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation in conjunction with the Razumkov Center’s sociological service.
“…Despite the fact that a relative majority of the population still considers NATO to be the best alternative, compared to December last year, the share of the population that named NATO membership as the best option for ensuring security has fallen from 55% to 38%. The decline in support for NATO has not been accompanied by an increase in sympathy for non-aligned status as such. Instead, there has been a shift in expectations toward alternative, less ambitious, or more flexible security models. In particular, over the past year, there has been a noticeable increase in the proportion of those who place their hopes on strategic defense cooperation agreements with individual NATO member countries (from 9% to 15%). Support for Ukraine’s neutral status has also increased, but on condition of international security guarantees (from 12% to 16%), as well as for the option of relying exclusively on its own defense capabilities, even without external guarantees (from 3% to 7%),” the survey results say.
At the same time, it is noted that these shifts indicate not so much a change in value orientations as growing doubts about the realism of Ukraine’s rapid accession to NATO in the context of a protracted war and ambiguous signals from international partners.
There also remain significant regional differences in the choice of security model, which play an important role in shaping the respondents’ positions.
“Respondents from western regions are significantly more likely (53%) than residents of other regions to name NATO membership as the best guarantee of security. In the central regions, this option also dominates, although less clearly (39%). In the southern and especially eastern regions, the share of NATO supporters is significantly lower: 32.5% and 22%, respectively. In the southern regions, respondents are more likely to choose neutral status with international guarantees (23%). At the same time, in the eastern regions, there are the most respondents who could not decide on the best option for ensuring Ukraine’s security compared to other macro-regions – their share is 26%. This reflects both different experiences of war and different expectations regarding international support,” sociologists write.
However, a much more significant factor than the macro-region of residence is belief in Ukraine’s victory.
“Among respondents who believe in victory, NATO membership remains the most desirable option (49.5%). At the same time, among those who do not believe in victory, only a relative minority (14%) support this option. Meanwhile, in this group, support for neutral status with international security guarantees (from 12% to 27%) and the option of relying on one’s own forces without international guarantees (5% to 13%) is growing significantly. The strength of the link between belief in victory and the vision of a security model is clear, which allows us to speak of the systemic nature of this factor,” according to the survey results.
The nationwide survey was conducted by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation in cooperation with the Razumkov Center’s sociological service between December 5 and 16, 2025.
A total of 2,000 respondents aged 18 and older were interviewed face-to-face in Vinnytsia, Volyn, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Zhytomyr, Zakarpattia, Zaporizhia, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kyiv, Kirovohrad, Lviv, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Poltava, Rivne, Sumy, Ternopil, Kharkiv, Kherson, Khmelnytskyi, Cherkasy, Chernihiv, and Chernivtsi regions, and the city of Kyiv. In Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, Mykolaiv, Kharkiv, and Kherson regions, the survey was conducted only in those territories controlled by the Ukrainian government and where there is no fighting.
The survey was conducted using a stratified multistage sample with random selection in the early stages of sample formation and a quota method of selecting respondents in the final stage, when respondents were selected according to gender and age quotas. The structure of the sample population reflects the demographic structure of the adult population in the territories where the survey was conducted as of early 2022, by age, gender, and type of settlement. The theoretical sampling error does not exceed 2.3%.
At the same time, additional systematic deviations in the sample may be due to the consequences of Russian aggression, in particular, the forced evacuation of millions of citizens.
