In Ukraine, 41% of citizens believe that the country is moving towards authoritarianism, and 50% believe that it is moving towards democracy and greater democracy.
This is evidenced by the results of a survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS).
Another 9% of respondents were undecided.
Among those who do not trust the president, the absolute majority (82% in the case of those who do not trust at all and 84% in the case of those who rather do not trust) believe that the country is moving towards authoritarianism.
At the same time, among those who fully trust the president, 76% talk about a move towards greater democracy and only 7% see the development of authoritarianism. Among those who rather trust the president, 50% already see a move towards democracy, while the share of those who see a move towards authoritarianism reaches 41%.
Respondents who believe that the country is moving towards authoritarianism were asked an additional open-ended question about why they think so. Relatively most often they mentioned restrictions on freedom of speech and pressure on the media (18% among those who believe that the country is moving towards authoritarianism), concentration of power (14%), general dissatisfaction with events and decisions in the country (13%), corruption (12%), activities of the TRC/mobilization (12%), restrictions on rights and freedoms (unspecified) (12%).
Only 4% of such respondents spoke about the lack of elections. And only 4% spoke about the persecution of the opposition (there was also 1% who specifically spoke about sanctions and the persecution of Petro Poroshenko).
In addition, the survey results indicate that those who believe that the country is moving towards authoritarianism are more willing to accept territorial losses, even in harsher forms.
Thus, among those who see a movement towards authoritarianism, 32% are ready to officially recognize certain occupied territories as part of Russia. And also 32% are ready even to transfer territories that are not currently controlled by Russia under its control (such as the cities of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, etc.). For comparison, among those who see a movement towards democracy, similar figures are, respectively, 15% and 9%.
The survey was conducted from May 28 to June 3 by telephone interviews in all government-controlled regions of Ukraine. A total of 1,092 respondents aged 18 and older who were living in the controlled territory of Ukraine at the time of the survey were interviewed.
The sample did not include residents of territories temporarily not controlled by the Ukrainian authorities (at the same time, some of the respondents are IDPs who moved from occupied territories), and the survey was not conducted with citizens who left abroad after February 24, 2022.
Formally, under normal circumstances, the statistical error of such a sample (with a probability of 0.95 and taking into account the design effect of 1.3) did not exceed 3.9% for indicators close to 50%, 3.4% for indicators close to 25%, 2.4% for indicators close to 10%, 1.7% for indicators close to 5%. Under war conditions, in addition to the specified formal error, a certain systematic deviation is added.
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