Absolute majority of Ukrainians want to build their future in Ukraine

The absolute majority of Ukrainians are proud of their citizenship and seel to build their future life in their home country of Ukraine.

This was reported at the press conference "Ukraine’s Independence Day: the value of the state, unity and volunteering during the war", held at Ukrinform, by scientific director of the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation, Oleksiy Haran, who presented a survey jointly run with the Razumkov Center.

"The absolute majority of Ukrainians (88%) are proud of their citizenship. For the third year in a row, pride in citizenship is at an almost equally high level (90.5% in 2022, 88.5% in 2023, and 88% in 2024), the highest indicators over the years of sociological monitoring. This is relevant to all age groups," Haran said.

According to the expert, the survey also showed that the absolute majority of respondents seek to build their future in Ukraine (86%), and the main share among them shows an unequivocal intention to stay in Ukraine (59%). This idea prevails among people with different levels of affluence and across all age groups. However, willingness to stay in Ukraine increases along with age. Among the youths, 74% want to build the future in Ukraine, among respondents 30-39 years old it’s 81%, among 40-49-year-olds it’s 87%, among 50-59-year-olds it’s 90%, and in the oldest group it’s 93%.

Haran emphasized that it was an “unexpectedly positive” result for him personally. "Our poll showed that the claim that ‘everyone wants to move abroad’ is not true," he added.

Haran added that the survey included a traditional question about a referendum. "If a referendum on the declaration of state independence of Ukraine were held today, the absolute majority of Ukrainians (85%) would support independence," he said.

At the same time, according to the expert, positive assessments of the direction in which Ukraine is moving have decreased over the past year: currently 40% of Ukrainians believe that developments are unfolding in the right direction (it was 49% in 2023), while 37% believe that the direction is wrong. Male respondents see the direction as right somewhat more often than females while uncertainty is more pronounced among the latter.

As for people’s main feelings about the future of Ukraine, hope (61%) clearly prevails, followed by anxiety (40%) and optimism (33.5%), Haran said.

The nationwide survey was conducted by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation together with the sociological service of the Razumkov Center from August 8 to 15, 2024, and covered 2,017 respondents.

Photo: ukraine-forum.eu