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The people of Ukraine think little of their neighbors. After all, Russia started the war in Ukraine – despite the narrative of a brother nation.
Kyiv – Since the beginning of the Ukraine war in February 2022 at the latest, a crack has been running through the narrative of the “brotherly peoples” of Russia and Ukraine. Even though the Russian President Wladimir Putin continues to call for such unity, more and more Ukrainians are convinced of the opposite. According to new surveys, they now have mainly negative associations with Russia and its people.
This is the result of a survey conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS). In it, people were asked what the first two or three words that come to mind when they hear the word “Russia” or the expression “ordinary Russians” are.
How and where was the survey conducted? Who was interviewed?
Using computer-assisted telephone interviews (CATI) based on a random sample of mobile phone numbers (with random generation of phone numbers and subsequent statistical weighting), 1,052 respondents living in all regions of Ukraine (territory controlled by the Ukrainian government) were interviewed from February 17 to 23 and 1,067 respondents from May 16 to 22. The survey was conducted among adult (18 years and older) citizens of Ukraine living in the territory of Ukraine controlled by the Ukrainian government at the time of the survey. (Source: KIIS)
A total of 80 percent said that when they heard the term “ordinary Russians” they only thought of negative words and expressions. These included: “non-humans,” “zombies,” “uneducated,” “enemies,” “stupid,” and “ordinary people.” The reactions to the word “Russia” were even stronger, with 94 percent of respondents thinking of negative things – e.g. “aggressor,” “enemy,” “hatred,” “occupier,” “murderer,” “non-humans,” and “anger.”
Putin and his neighbors –- The Ukraine war has significantly worsened relations
Given the Russian war of aggression that has been going on for over two years, this result is hardly surprising. According to the KIIS, in February 2022, shortly before the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, 34 percent of Ukrainians said they had a good attitude towards their neighboring country. In November 2021, 75 percent even answered that they had a positive attitude towards the people of Russia.
In addition to the attitude towards Russia and ordinary Russians, the institute has been studying for 15 years how Ukrainians assess Ukraine’s relations with Russia. According to the data, in February 2013, a full 70 percent of those surveyed were in favor of a friendly relationship between the two countries – with open borders and no visa requirements. After the occupation of the Crimea and the beginning of the war in Donbass, the proportion of those who believed that relations should be like those with other states increased significantly (from 15 to 44 percent). Now, according to the latest results from May this year, it has risen to 75 percent, while only 12 percent are in favor of friendly relations.
Alienation of Russian and Ukrainian societies – Putin’s leadership style has consequences
It is also striking that the number of those who find it “difficult to say” what the relationship should look like has risen sharply. In 2013, only three percent agreed with this, and in 2024, it was 13 percent. In the same period, the proportion of those who support a unification of the two countries has fallen drastically – from 12 to 0.3 percent.
These findings coincide with those of the Ukrainian political scientist Serhii Shapovalov. According to his data, Ukrainians were predominantly positive about the idea of an alliance with Russia and Belarus from the early 2000s to 2013. It was not until 2014 that this suddenly changed. His analysis, which was published in January 2022 on the portal Understanding Ukraine The study, which was published in 2007, concluded that a mental alienation between Russian and Ukrainian societies had occurred. In addition to the war in Donbass and the occupation of Crimea, this was also due to an increasingly different understanding of the values that should be at the forefront of a state, said Shapovalov at the time.
Putin dreams of “restoring unity” – but the Ukraine war has had the opposite effect
Nevertheless, Putin never tires of emphasizing that the “brother Ukrainian people” belong to Russia’s sphere of influence. His theory of a “divided people” is essential to this, according to a report by the German Society for Foreign Policy. He has always emphasized the “striving of the Russian world and historical Russia to restore unity” and postulated Russia’s responsibility as a protective power against the West. Ultimately, this is an authoritarian-imperial assertion of identity that questions the validity of the borders after the collapse of the USSR. It has nothing to do with the attitudes actually observed in today’s Ukrainian society, the report continues.
For a long time, the Russian perspective, which has had the dominant interpretation for two centuriessays historian Andreas Kappeler in his book “Unequal Brothers. Russians and Ukrainians from the Middle Ages to the Present”. Ukraine has always been perceived as part of the Russian nation, and thus it has been wrongly denied its own language, culture and history. In the late Middle Ages there was indeed a “common cradle of the Kievan Rus'”. Over the centuries, however, the paths of the so-called “little brother” Ukraine and “big brother” Russia diverged. Nevertheless, today “national categories are projected back to the Middle Ages, when there was no talk of Russians and Ukrainians”. (tpn)
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