Two-thirds of Ukrainians believe country developing in wrong direction – poll

Two-thirds (66%) of Ukrainians believe that events in the country are developing in the wrong direction, while 18% are convinced that Ukraine is on the right track.

That is according to a survey conducted by the Ukrainian Centre for Economic and Political Studies named after Oleksandr Razumkov on March 5-9, 2021, available to UNIAN.

"Only 18% of respondents believe that events in Ukraine are developing in the right direction, whereas 66% are of the opinion that the events are developing in the wrong direction," the study said.

Read alsoAlmost every second entrepreneur expects business climate to worsen in Ukraine – pollSome 68% of respondents assess the economic situation in the country as "very bad" or "rather bad" (and a mere 2% as "good" or "very good," while 28% say the situation is "neither bad nor good").

Meanwhile, the respondents assess the level of their families' well-being somewhat better (44% consider it as "very" or "rather" bad, 45% as "neither bad nor good"), while 9% believe their well-being is "good" or "very good."

Also, Ukrainian citizens do not really believe in rapid positive changes in the domestic economic sector: a mere 9% consider the economic situation will change for the better in the next three months, while 9% hope that their families well-being may improve during the said period.

Yet, Ukrainian citizens much more often expect the situation to deteriorate in the coming months: 30% believe that the country's economic situation will worsen in the next three months, while 23% expect their families' well-being decline during this time. However, most of such respondents believe that the situation will not change significantly in a three-month period (respectively, 52% and 56% do not expect changes in these areas).

At the same time, the expectation of changes in the economic sphere is less pessimistic than in December 2020 (back then 41% of people surveyed expected a deterioration in the country's economic situation in the following three months, while 32% said their families' well-being may worsen within the said period).

Expectations of changes in the next two or three years are contradictory: the shares of respondents expecting that the economic situation will improve, worsen or will not change during this period differ little, within the range of 22%-25%.

Regarding the expectations of changes in the families' well-being over this period, the respondents more often believe that it will remain unchanged (28%), while 21% expect an improvement and 19% – a deterioration.

"Some 19% of respondents believe that Ukraine is able to overcome current challenges and difficulties in the next few years, 50.5% consider that the country is able to overcome them in the longer term, while 19% say that it is unable to overcome them," sociologists summed up.

Poll: Details

• The study was conducted by the Razumkov Center on March 5-9, 2021.
• A total of 2,018 respondents aged 18 and older were polled using face-to-face interviews at places of their residence in all regions of Ukraine except Crimea and other Russia-occupied parts of Ukraine, namely certain districts in Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
• The theoretical margin of error does not exceed 2.3%.