‘Overwhelming Majority’ of Urban Ukrainians Patriotic, Poll Finds

Paul Goble

            Staunton, August 18 – Ukrainian nationalism is often viewed as primarily a rural phenomenon, but a new poll conducted by three leading Ukrainian sociological agencies finds that “the overwhelming majority of residents of Ukrainian cities of more than a million residents each consider themselves to be patriots and are proud that they are Ukrainians.”

            That is how Ukrainska Pravda summarizes the results which showed that 86 percent of Lviv rsidents, 64 percent of Odessans, and 62 percent of Kharkiv ones said they considered themselves Ukrainian patriots. Residents said they were proud to be Ukrainian citizens 85 percent, 68 percent and 65 percent respectively (pravda.com.ua/rus/news/2018/08/16/7189462/).

                Only two percent of Lviv residents, eight percent of people in Kharkiv, and 10 percent in Odessa said they were not proud to be Ukrainians, figures that call into question the claims of some pro-Moscow groups that sizeable numbers of people in the cities are less than pleased to be in Ukraine.

            The poll did find greater variation in the attitudes of urban residents to the kind of state system in Ukraine they would like to have. Supporters of a unitary state numbered 80 percent in Lviv but only 46 percent in Odessa and Kharkiv, with support for federal arrangements ranging from eight percent in Lviv to 28 percent in Kharkiv and 44 percent in Odessa.