If Ukraine held a referendum regarding NATO membership in July 2015, more than half of Ukrainians casting their ballots would vote for joining the alliance, as is evident from a sociological survey of 2,011 respondents conducted by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives foundation and the Razumkov Center sociological service on July 22-27, 2015.
The poll showed that 64 percent of those who would go to the polling stations in a referendum would vote for joining NATO, while 28.5 percent would be against it.
At the same time, a press release issued to comment on the poll’s findings on Aug. 14 says that “such a high result is due in large part to the fact that voter turnout in such a referendum would be higher in the regions where most people support NATO membership.”
In particular, while voter turnout on average for Ukraine would be 62 percent, it would be 77 percent in the western part of the country and 65 percent in the central part, compared to only 49 percent in Donbas, where a majority of the population is against Ukraine’s NATO membership.
The poll also revealed significant differences on issues related to NATO between Ukraine’s regions.
As many as 89 percent of those polled would vote for NATO membership and 4 percent against it in the western part of Ukraine, 73 percent for and 19 percent against in the central part, and 61 percent for and 40 percent against in the southern part.
At the same time, only 30 percent would vote for NATO membership and 64 percent against it in the eastern part of Ukraine; in Donbas, these figures are 36 percent and 54 percent respectively.
“The main motive in supporting NATO membership is security issue: among those who support Ukraine’s membership of NATO, the role of this motive grew to 82 percent in 2015 from 65 percent in 2012. The second reason is the belief that NATO would help strengthen and modernize the Ukrainian armed forces [the role of this motive grew to 49 percent in 2015 from 38 percent in 2012],” the press release says.
The principal motive of the opponents remains the same as in previous years: in the opinion of 50 percent of those polled, “this could drag Ukraine into NATO’s military actions.” However, the number of those sharing this motive has declined from 63 percent in 2012.
The role of another motive, that is, the long-standing stereotype that the alliance is “an aggressive imperialistic bloc,” is currently shared by 37 percent, having declined from 46 percent in 2012.
A new argument appeared in 2015, that is, that NATO membership “could provoke Russia into direct military aggression” (29 percent).
At the same time, the number of NATO opponents convinced that “Ukraine should be a non-aligned state” has remained virtually the same (32 percent in 2015 compared to 34 percent in 2012).
Speaking of Ukraine’s neutral status, sociologists noted that most Ukrainians were convinced for a long time that this status guaranteed the country’s security (the opinion was shared by over 42 percent in April 2012). Moreover, a significant number of those polled (26 percent in 2012) saw a military alliance with Russia and other CIS countries as a guarantee of Ukraine’s security, while only 12 percent believed that NATO could be such a security guarantee.
However, after events in Crimea and Donbas, public opinion has shifted. “Non-aligned status has significantly lost its popularity, while support for NATO as the most reliable way to guarantee security has dramatically grown from 13 percent in 2012 to 33 percent in May 2014 to 44 percent in September 2014, and to 46 percent in December 2014; true, it declined to 36 percent in July 2015,” the press release says.
The number of those supporting a military alliance with Russia and other former Soviet republics has dramatically dropped to 8 percent from 26 percent.
At the same time, most of the respondents in some regions of Ukraine still prefer non-aligned status. In particular, 49% of those polled in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts controlled by Kyiv and 43 percent in the eastern part of Ukraine in general are sure that the best option for Ukraine is not to belong to any alliances.
The poll was conducted in all regions of Ukraine except Crimea and the occupied territories in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.
