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“My visit was designed to remind that the struggle of Ukraine is the struggle of Europe itself.”
Maas, speaking before the German parliament on June 9, also stated that he could see a way to create an environment for long-term shipments of Russian gas through Ukraine, reuters.com reports. He believes that the current contract expiration of 2024 could be done away with.
2.6 Polls & Sociology
Public opinion surveys conducted by the Razumkov Center and Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) in late May show that Ukrainians are quite pessimistic about the state of the economy. The Razumkov Center poll revealed that 60% of respondents rated the economic situation in Ukraine as “very bad” or “quite bad.” However, according to Razumkov’s analysts, opinion on the economy has improved since the beginning of the year, when this view was shared by 69% of respondents.
Asked about their family’s financial situation, the majority of respondents (54%) from the KIIS survey said that it has deteriorated over the last two years, as opposed to 11% of respondents who said their situation has improved. In turn, the Razumkov Center poll found that only 36% of respondents rate their family’s well-being as “very bad” or “quite bad,” while 14% rated it as “good” or “very good.”
Asked to choose the main cause of Ukraine’s economic crisis from among four options, nearly 43% of KIIS survey respondents chose high levels of corruption. Another 34% attributed the country’s economic problems to the incompetence of the authorities and only about 8% said the coronavirus pandemic. Notably, when the Razumkov Center had respondents assess the level of success with which the government tackled problems in various areas, fighting corruption was ranked second to last out of 20 areas listed.
If the presidential elections in Ukraine were held at the end of May 2021, Volodymyr Zelensky received the greatest support - 27.3% among those who are going to vote and have made their choice. Over the past month, his rating has slightly decreased - in mid-April 31.4% of respondents planned to vote for him.
In second place is Petro Poroshenko, who would be supported by 14.6% of those who decided (in mid-April - 18.1%). Yulia Tymoshenko is in third place - 11.9% (a month earlier - 11.9%).
The fourth place is shared with approximately equal support by Igor Smeshko - 9.5% (in mid-April - 10.4%) and Yuriy Boyko - 9.2% (a month earlier - 10.4%).
Some 35.7% of Ukrainians regard the intentions of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to carry out de-oligarchization in the country as a populist step in order to increase his own rating, according to the results of a sociological survey conducted by the Socis Center for Social and Marketing Research from May 28 to June 3, 2021.
Polling shows Ukrainian voter support stabilizing. Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) released the results of its political poll on June 10. KIIS said the political situation in Ukraine has been “quite dynamic” since December 2020. However, changes in support levels since April 2021 have all been within the margin of statistical error. The result is relatively the same ordering of political support, though some changes can be seen.
15 UKRAINE Country Report July 2021 www.intellinews.com