Ukrainians are convinced that Russia uses war in Donbas to control Ukraine - research

More than 64% of Ukrainians are of the opinion that the Donbas conflict is a Russian-Ukrainian one, the purpose of which is the Russian Federation's control over Ukraine. This is evidenced by the data of the analytical study "The factor of public opinion in shaping the policy of settlement of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict: opportunities and risks", prepared by the Razumkov Centre with the support of the Representative Office of the Hanns Seidel Foundation in Ukraine.

According to the results obtained, the absolute majority of the respondents - 64.6% of citizens consider the Donbas conflict to be Russian-Ukrainian (not internal), in which Russia aims to gain control over all of Ukraine (68% of those who consider the conflict to be Russian-Ukrainian, and 43.9% of all the respondents).

However, despite the presence of noticeable regional differences in the proportion of citizens who support different points of view regarding the conflict's nature, the prevailing perception of the conflict is interstate.

As sociologists note, in the East and South of Ukraine, where more than a quarter of the respondents (29.8% and 28.7%, respectively) consider the conflict to be internal, the share of those who share the official and dominant point of view in society prevails (39.9% and 47.1%, respectively). It is also noteworthy that it is in the East and South that the proportion of those who do not have an answer to this question is significantly higher.