The majority of Ukrainians remain against giving special status to the Donbas, as Moscow demands, but over the last year an ever larger share are prepared to consider expanding autonomy for the region along with others. That’s something from which the Donbas, once brought back under Ukrainian control, would presumably benefit as well.
That is the finding of a new poll by Berlin’s Center for East European and International Studies (zois-berlin.de/fileadmin/media/Dateien/ZOiS_Reports/ZOiS_Report_4_2018.pdf) and reported by Deutsche Welle (dw.com/ru/исследова ние-большинство-украинцев-отвер гают-идею-особого-статуса-донбасса/ a-466 21373).
According to the poll, the share of Ukrainians favoring a return to the status quo ante as far as the center’s control over the Donbas is concerned fell from 59 percent in 2017 to 53 percent in 2018, while the share backing more autonomy to the region once it is back under Ukrainian control rose from 3.9 percent to 6.6 percent.
In 2017, the Berlin center found, only 16 percent were ready to offer autonomy of any kind to the Donbas. In 2018 that figure rose to 25 percent.
Four other results of the poll are noteworthy:
• The share of Ukrainians opposed to including the United States in talks about the Donbas crisis rose from 15 percent in 2017 to 25 percent in 2018, while 72 percent said that they supported the introduction of United Nations peacekeepers as a means of resolving the dispute with Russia. (That question was not asked in 2017.)
• Ukrainians increasingly identify as members of a civic nation rather than an ethnic one. In 2017, 37 percent said they were part of a civic nation; in 2018, 49 percent do. Over the same period those identifying primarily as ethnic Ukrainians fell from 46 percent to 36.9 percent.
• The share of Ukrainians saying that Ukrainian is their native language fell from 67 percent in 2017 to 58 percent in 2018, with those identifying Russian as their native language rising from 13 percent to 19 percent, reflecting more willingness to identify Russian in this way and also in response to government efforts to exclude Russian from many aspects of life.
• Ever more Ukrainians say they have friends in the European Union, 31 percent in 2018 as opposed to 24 percent in 2017, a reflection of travel, and also a statement in support of the idea that Ukraine is part of Europe and not part of Eurasia.