A new nationwide poll of Ukraine released today shows that the most inspiring thing Ukrainians see in their future is the end of the war (75%). Second and third tops place Ukraine’s accession to the European Union and improvement of the political situation in the country. A large share of respondents believe in rapid development of Ukraine after the war.

Three things scare respondents most are indefinite duration of the, fear for the lives of loved ones and financial difficulties. These are results of a national survey of 1000 respondents, conducted by research companies Cygnal (USA) and Gradus Research (Ukraine).

Ukrainians are experiencing monumental levels of stress. The main emotions they’re feeling are tension and wrath. These emotions prevail among men. Women often feel fear. The main factor of stress is war, in particular, the concern about the safety and risk of losing a source of income.

“These incredibly strong emotions stem from the fear that the war could go on indefinitely and that their loved ones could die, but they're also related to some key aspects of the war that Westerners may not be thinking about,” said Cygnal President Brent Buchanan. “Namely, loss of normalcy, such as an altered financial situation, job loss, and the threat of long-term displacement”.

The biggest challenge respondents are trying to tackle is safety. By safety they mean safe location of the house, absence of missile attacks, safety of movement around the city/suburbs. Difficult living conditions are related to the need to spend a considerable amount of time in shelters and poor conditions there.

The greatest expectations from the international community are the provision of protective and offensive weapons, as well as financial and humanitarian aid to the country. Expectations about the “closed sky” and the international peacekeeping mission are at a lower level. Among the needs, respondents put the need for offensive weapons first.

“Most, in fact 65%, of Ukrainians want protective weapons, and nearly that many also want offensive weapons, financial aid, and humanitarian aid in the form of food and supplies,” said Evgeniya Bliznyuk, CEO and Founder of Gradus. “We also see great enthusiasm for joining the European Union. Roughly equal parts of respondents believe that Ukraine should join NATO and Ukraine better to create a new defense union (24% and 27%, respectively). However, a third of respondents are uncertain about this issue, so explanatory work from the state will be appropriate”.

The full report is available upon request in the lead form on this page.

The survey has been conducted by Gradus Research with the method of self-administered questionnaire in a mobile application. Online panel Gradus displays the population structure of cities with more than 50,000 inhabitants aged 18-60 by sex, age, size of the city and region. The survey conducted on April 1, 2022. Sample size is 1000 respondents.

The Ukrainian company Gradus Research has created a national panel in smartphones and has (18-60 years old, 50 thousand+ cities, 40 thousand respondents in the database) conducting representative sociological and marketing research for three years. The Gradus mobile survey method enables the production of national sample fields in a matter of hours (18-60 years old, 50 thousand+ cities, 40 thousand respondents in the database). In addition, Gradus conducts qualitative research. The company makes about 300 studies per year.

Cygnal is an award-winning international polling, public opinion, and predictive analytics firm

that pioneered multi-mode polling, text-to-web collection, and emotive analysis. The company is based in the USA. During the long years of work Cygnal was awarded several times. It is consistently ranked first in the accuracy of research. The company has participated in over 2,700 corporate, social and political campaigns.