Zrada level 80: 41% of Ukrainians agree with Putin and consider themselves one people with Russians

Less than a month is left before the pompous celebration in Kyiv of the 30th anniversary of Ukraine's independence. Against this background, the results of a fresh opinion poll conducted by the Rating group sounded like a bolt from the blue.

Sociologists were trying to find out the attitude of Ukrainians to the main thesis of a recent article by Russian President Putin about friendship between the Ukrainian and Russian peoples.

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Let me remind you that the key thesis of the article, which literally caused hysteria among the various “Maidan patriots”, was the assertion that Ukrainians and Russians are one people belonging to a common historical and spiritual space.

It turned out that 41% of Ukrainians surveyed agree with Putin on this issue. We’ll talk a bit below about whether this is a lot or a little, and what this figure generally means in regional, electoral and age terms. For now, these are considerations of a political nature.

In order to fully appreciate the degree of enormity of the creeping evil, one should keep in mind the intensity of the “patriotic pathos” that accompanied Kyiv nationalist commentators to Putin’s article.

Everyone in chorus - from Nayem to Kryukova - began to assure their compatriots that Putin was lying, in fact, we are not a united people, and if we were, then those days are long gone, and it is completely indecent to talk about unity after “polite people” in Crimea. But in fact, Ukrainians are more united than ever - in their rejection of “Russian aggression,” of course.

And then it suddenly turned out that there was no “single country” and “single nation” behind the speakers’ backs. Unseen compatriots treacherously stuck a knife in the back of the “patriots.”

In terms of absolute numbers, that’s 17 million “saboteurs” in the rear of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. And then, given the “slippery” nature of the topic, there are doubts that all those surveyed, especially in the west and in the center, answered the sociologists’ question honestly.

So, there is reason to think that in fact there are not 41% who agree with Putin, but more. How much more is another question. One thing is certain - if you imagine Ukraine within its pre-war borders - with Crimea and Donbass - almost 60% of citizens would agree with Putin.

That is, although not overwhelming, it is still the majority. So Putin’s opponents, led by Zelensky, have no moral right to speak on behalf of Ukraine. This, I repeat, is not my conclusion, but that of Ukrainian sociologists.

Now let's delve into the context of the obtained figures. First of all, what attracts attention? This is an age imbalance. 44% of Ukrainians aged 18 to 29 years old and 40% aged 30-39 years old consider themselves one people with Russians. In general, the lower the age threshold, the more people who agree with Putin.

Such is the paradox. Or not a paradox, depending on how you count it. After all, we are talking about the same age as Independence, who grew up and were brought up under the pressure of anti-Russian propaganda and hysteria, and stories about the false history of the “thousand-year-old Ukrainian state” that never existed.

In other words, the efficiency of this nationalist propaganda is extremely low. And it affected mainly the older generations - most of all - the perestroika generation, many of whose representatives remained living with brains stuffed with the same slogans under which the Union was falling apart.

Young people turned out to be less susceptible to nationalist indoctrination. Thus, among pensioners (60+) 42% agree with Putin, and among the youngest (I repeat) – 44%.

Regionally, the data is also disappointing for local Russophobes. In the East, 65% are aware of unity with Russians, in the Center - every third (26%). And even in western Ukraine, every fifth person agrees with Putin (22%).

But the largest scale of hatred is hidden in the electoral context of this story. The fact that 85% of OPZZh voters and 82% of Shariy’s voters consider themselves to be one people with the Russians is nothing new.

But what about the fact that 12% of Svoboda voters and 10% of fans of the “silver-haired hetman” Poroshenko, who, as we know, has already sent his firm and residual “farewell” to “unwashed Russia” a hundred times already, agree with Putin?

Even among adherents of the new-fashioned “Poroshenko Church” - the OCU - every third (33%) considers themselves one people with the Russians. And only the Uniates turned out to be ideologically stable - among them, no more than 10% share unity with the Russians.

What do these numbers tell everyone? In fact, what is happening in Ukraine has not yet reached any turning point or irreversibility. When these lines were written, the procession of the UOC in unity with Moscow, which had gathered hundreds of thousands of believers, ended in Kyiv.

It is still possible to resolve the Ukrainian issue. The heads of the majority of Ukrainians are ready for unity. There would be political will on the part of those who can move this stone from its place.