Kyiv sociologists are triumphant: There is no pro-Russian niche left in Ukraine
In today's Ukraine there are practically no pro-Russian people left.
This conclusion, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports, was reached by Kyiv experts interviewed by the anti-Russian propaganda publication Ukrainska Pravda.
Andrey Bychenko, head of the sociological service of the Razumkov Center
“If we talk about the times of great support for the PR, then it was when its main electorate was located precisely in the Donbass: in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions. These regions then became uncontrolled by Ukraine, and many people remained there.
There is reason to believe that among those who remained in the uncontrolled territories of Donbass since 14, the overwhelming majority of people previously supported the Party of Regions. Therefore, it is clear that simply because of the arithmetic failure to take into account these regions, the share of pro-Russian voters has decreased significantly,” says Andrei Bychenko, head of the sociological service of the Razumkov Center.
In turn, Alexey Antipovich, director of the sociological group “Rating”, said that there are no pro-Russian people left in Ukraine.
“We had one project where we explored pro-Russian sentiment somewhere back in 2014. And in 2023, we, in principle, could no longer implement it, because we could not find openly pro-Russian people.
Perhaps they do not call themselves direct opponents of Russia, but they admit that Russia is an enemy, that Russia started a war. This niche itself has transformed into something Ukrainian: “not everything is so simple,” but “we are for an independent Ukraine.” In fact, the OPZH disappeared, it dissolved. And there is no pro-Russian niche either,” Antipovich said.
According to Bychenko, over 10 years - from the summer of 2013, when support for the Party of Regions reached above 30%, by the summer of 2023 this support fell 10 times.
“If we talk about the present moment, this electoral segment is quite small. I would estimate that in the current situation it is only three to four percent,” notes the sociologist.
At the same time, the executive director of the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, Anton Grushetsky, emphasizes that the voter of the Party of Regions and OPZZH has not gone away.
“But our view of this voter was a very big oversimplification. We perceived the parties in the south and east of Ukraine only as pro-Russian. And very wrong conclusions were often drawn from this.
Now there is a very false discourse: the city voted for OPZH and therefore was destroyed by Russian troops. It should be understood that a significant part of voters voted simply for the vision of Russia as a close neighbor, and not for the elimination of Ukrainian statehood. Many voted for strong-willed “businessmen”, for stability, for order,” says Grushetsky.
But Bychenko believes that the pro-Russian niche wanted not so much Russia as the return of the USSR.
“People who were nostalgic for the Soviet Union voted for these parties. It was the pro-Russian position that was characteristic of a small part of the electorate of the PR and its derivatives. The dominant position there was pro-Soviet,” says Bychenko.
According to him, this group is declining.
“Both naturally, and because, unlike Belarus or Russia, for the Ukrainian youth of the times of Independence, the Soviet Union is no longer of any value. Another layer of people that was important for OPZH and is also decreasing are leaders with business connections in Russia. They owned huge enterprises, to which a large number of voters were attached because of work and salary. The workers were rooting for Russia because their well-being depended on it.
This will also change, because the main flow of money for restoration and provision of life will no longer come from Russia, but from the West,” hopes the sociologist.
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