Over half of Ukrainians support Zelensky's direct talks with terrorist leaders in Donbas – poll

Over half of Ukrainians support the direct talks between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the leaders of the Russian-backed terrorists for the sake of peace in Donbas.

As evidenced by the results of a survey conducted by the Social Monitoring Center and Oleksandr Yaremenko Ukrainian Institute for Social Research, presented at a press conference in Kyiv on Monday, July 1, respondents were asked whether the president of Ukraine should go for a direct dialogue with the Russian Federation for the sake of establishing peace in Donbas.

The majority of respondents, or 70.4%, to one degree or another supported the idea for the president to engage in direct dialogue with Russia. In particular, 40.4% of respondents answered "certainly, yes," while 30% said "rather, yes," an UNIAN correspondent reports.

A total of 10.4% of respondents said "certainly, no," and 8.3% answered "rather, no." Another 10.9% of respondents found it difficult to answer.

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At the same time, when asked whether the president of Ukraine should engage in direct dialogue with the leaders of the so-called "LPR/DPR" to reach peace in eastern Ukraine, over half of Ukrainians, or 54.8%, spoke in favor of such negotiations. In particular, 30.7% answered "certainly, yes," and 24% said "rather, yes."

At the same time, a third of respondents, or 33.3%, said the president should not enter into direct negotiations with terrorist leaders. In particular, 20.8% answered "certainly, no," and 12.4% said "rather, no." Another 12.1% found the question difficult to answer.

UNIAN memo. The poll was conducted on June 22-27 through formalized, face-to-face interviews among the population of Ukraine aged 18 years and older. Some 2,000 respondents were polled. The margin of error is +/- 1.2% -2.2%.