Nearly one third of Ukrainians - 31.5 percent - see the conflict in Donbas as a separatist rebellion supported by Russia, and another 28 percent qualify this as a war between Ukraine and Russia, as is seen from a public opinion poll of 2,008 respondents aged 18 and older, conducted by the Razumkov Center sociological service on November 6-12, 2015, whose results were published in Kyiv on Dec. 1.
The poll showed that 16.3 percent of the respondents view the events in eastern Ukraine as a civil war, 8.4% as a war between Russia and the U.S., and 7.4% as the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics’ struggle for independence.
As many as 71.8 percent of those polled see Russia as an aggressor and a party to the conflict in Donbas, while 12.2 percent are of the view that Russia is unrelated to the events in eastern Ukraine and is not a party to the conflict.
The poll showed that 64.4 percent of the respondents consider the DPR and LPR terrorist organizations, while 22.8 percent believe the authorities of the self-proclaimed republics represent the population of these territories.
Asked what developments in the Donbas conflict they would see as the worst-case scenario, 36.8 percent of the respondents mentioned its freezing, 32 percent the granting of special status to the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics within Ukraine (which implies amnesty, the right to language self-determination, the right to appoint the leading officials in courts and prosecution agencies, the establishment of their own police, and the impossibility of the early termination of local lawmakers and other elected officials’ mandates), and 31.2 percent of those polled were undecided.
If the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics territories are reintegrated with Ukraine, 29.6 percent of Ukrainians believe the destroyed infrastructure should be restored at Russia’s cost, 29.4 percent only at the cost of funds to be collected in these territories, and 23.5 percent at Ukraine’s cost.
If Ukraine has to coexist with the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, 45.1 percent of those polled believe Ukraine should sever any relations with these territories, including economic ones, 27.6 percent suggested that Donbas would have to be granted special status enabling it to influence Ukraine’s domestic and foreign policy, and 27.3 percent were undecided.
