Forty-eight percent of Ukrainian citizens have a negative attitude towards Stepan Bandera (a leader of the Ukrainian nationalist movement, 1909-59) and 31% have a positive attitude, according to a poll, titled "Nostalgia for the USSR and Attitude to Individual Figures", conducted by the Rating Sociological Group in April. Thirty-one percent of those polled said their opinion of Bandera was absolutely negative, 17% said it was negative rather than positive, 18% that it was positive rather than negative and 13 were absolutely positive about this figure.
Seventeen percent of those surveyed were undecided and 4% said they know nothing about Bandera.
Seventy-six percent of those who live in western Ukraine have a
positive opinion towards Bandera, the poll indicates. Twelve percent of
residents of western Ukraine have a negative attitude to Bandera and 12%
are undecided.
In the north of Ukraine Bandera is seen in a positive light by only
39% of respondents, with 40% with a negative attitude to Bandera and 20%
being undecided. The figures characteristic of central Ukraine are: 28%
are positive and 39% are negative about this figure, and 28% are
undecided.
The situation in the southern and eastern regions, except Donbass,
is: 15% and 8% are pro-Bandera, and 69%-70% are negative, with, 14% and
18% respectively undecided.
In Donbass, 79% of those polled have a negative attitude to Bandera, 3% positive and 2% are undecided.
Eight percent of residents of Donbas, 6% of Ukrainians living in the
center of the country, 5% of those residing in eastern Ukraine and 2%
each in the north and south said they know nothing about Bandera.
Overall, 2,000 respondents aged from 18 were questioned in
face-to-face polls from April 15 to 25. The poll took the age, gender,
regions and type of populated area into account. The margin of error was
not more than 2.2%.
The poll referred Volyn, Rivne, Lviv, Ternopil, Zakarpattia,
Ivano-Frankivsk and Chernivtsi regions to western Ukraine; Zhytomyr,
Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy and Kyiv regions to northern Ukraine; Khmelnytsky,
Vinnytsia, Cherkasy, Poltava and Kirovohrad regions to central Ukraine.
Odesa, Mykolaiv and Kherson regions were rated as southern regions,
Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhia regions as eastern Ukraine and
the Donetsk and Luhansk regions as Donbas.
