The Ukrainians are ambivalent about the possibility of granting autonomy within Ukraine to the temporarily occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions for the purpose of ending hostilities and peaceful conflict settlement in Donbas.
During a nationwide poll by the Social Monitoring Center on July 8-15, 42.7% said they “would support” or were “likely to support” such an autonomy for Donbas, according to the poll’s findings unveiled at an Interfax-Ukraine press conference in Kyiv on Tuesday .
At the same time, 39% would rather “not support” or were “certain not to support” a Donbas autonomy.
On the regional level, the autonomy is seen as a solution by 64.2% in Donbas, 59.2% in the south, 57.3% in the east and 41.6% in the Central Region, and by only 15.7% in the west of Ukraine.
Most in the Western Region (66.9%) said they would “rather not support” or were “certain not to support” a decision to grant Donbas an autonomy. The figures for central, eastern, southern and Donbas regions were 38.2%, 27.2%, 21.9% and 17.5%, respectively. A total of 18.3% were undecided.
Asked whether direct talks with Russia are necessary to attain a peace, 38% said yes, absolutely, 31.6% were inclined to agree and 8.7% were inclined to disagree, and 12.1% said absolutely not. Most of those who said such talks were necessary for peace in the east and Donbas were 50.2% and 46.5%, respectively; in the latter group, 20.7% were respondents in western Ukraine.
The poll entitled “Opinions and views of the Ukrainian population, July 2020,” surveyed 3,035 respondents; margin of error: 1.1-1.9%.
