70% of Ukrainians disagree with Putin's theses about Ukrainians and Russians as "one people" - poll

70% of Ukrainian citizens do not agree with the thesis of President of the Russian Federation V.Putin that there was and could not be any historical basis for the idea of ​​a Ukrainian people separate from the Russian, and the consideration of Ukrainians and Belarusians as separate peoples was the result of Soviet ethnic policy. This is evidenced by the results of study "Assessment by citizens of Ukraine of the main theses of V. Putin's article "On the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians" (July-August 2021) by the Razumkov Centre.

In the course of the survey, the respondents were asked how they assess the main theses of the recently published article by Russian President Vladimir Putin "On the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians". 12.5% of Ukrainian citizens agree with the thesis expressed in this article that there was and could not be any historical basis for the idea of the Ukrainian people separate from the Russian people, and the consideration of Ukrainians and Belarusians as separate peoples was the result of Soviet ethnic policy, 70% do not agree 70% (17% were undecided).

Disagreement with him is expressed by the majority of residents of all regions of Ukraine. 52% of the respondents disagree with this thesis in the East of the country (only 22% of the residents of this region agree), in the South - 59% and 19%, respectively, in the Central region - 74% and 12%, respectively, in the Western region - 90% and 0.4% respectively.

The share of those who agree with him is slightly higher among representatives of the older (60 and more years old) age group (16% among them agree, while among those under 40 years old - 10%), but disagreement with him significantly prevails in all age groups (from 66% in the older group to 75% among those who are from 30 to 39 years old).

Also, the share of those who agree with him is higher among ethnic Russian citizens of Ukraine compared to ethnic Ukrainians (30% and 11% agree, respectively), however, disagreement with him prevails among ethnic Russians as well (49% among them disagree, 72.5% - among ethnic Ukrainians).

7% of the Ukrainian-speaking respondents (who communicate in Ukrainian at home) share V. Putin's position on this issue, there are 21% among Russian-speaking respondents, the majority (81% and 55%, respectively) do not share it in both of these groups.

The study was conducted by the sociological service of the Razumkov Centre from July 29 to August 4, 2021 using the method of face-to-face interviews at the place of residence of the respondents. A total of 2019 respondents aged 18 and over were interviewed in all regions of Ukraine, with the exception of the Crimea and the occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, based on a sample representing the adult population in terms of basic socio-demographic indicators. The theoretical sampling error (excluding the design effect) does not exceed 2.3% with a probability of 0.95.