«The incredible national unity»: Michael Druckman on Ukrainians’ views and moods

Andriy Kulykov: Hello and welcome to Ukraine Calling, the English-language podcast from Hromadske Radio in Kyiv. I’m Andriy Kulykov and my interviewee this time is Michael Druckman. Mr. Druckman is the program director for Ukraine at the International Republican Institute. This is the third time I am interviewing him after another of the major opinion surveys conducted in Ukraine to see how we Ukrainians change our views while fighting the Russian onslaught, or do we change our views?

Hence, my first question to Michael Druckman: What is drastically different about the results of this new survey by the International Republican Institute?

Michael Druckman: I think one thing that struck us is how Ukrainians, despite all the difficulties last winter, still have such a positive outlook on their local governments and, again, not just in Western Ukraine where we’ve had some real standouts in the past. But again, you see this consistently across Ukrainian cities.

Andriy Kulykov: So basically, when I’m asking about the difference, you say there’s no difference. There’s progress or just retaining the previous position. What are the changes in the moods that you see?

Michael Druckman: Those changes are in those cities that at the moment don’t have a mayor. When the survey was conducted they had a secretary of their council, for example, in charge either because that mayor had been removed for a criminal proceeding or there had yet to be an election held. When you get below just viewpoints of the mayor or the council, one of the striking things is that I think there’s a greater appreciation for the services that are being offered. So people are recognizing, for example, that trash is still being collected and other basic services. There’s an appreciation for that, particularly again after the last year. But we can still see in certain cities, you know. Low scores in certain areas, Poltava, unfortunately, Sumy, Zaporizhzhya. And again, these are cities that either haven’t had a mayor for a while or as we see in the case of Sumy we have an active corruption investigation about the removal of that mayor which was after the survey, but you do see differences amongst the cities.

But we haven’t seen a drastic decrease across all cities not just in trust and support and the approval ratings of elected leaders, but even in services which again if you were to measure certain service delivery for Ukrainian cities with tools such as that used by the World Bank or the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Perhaps there has been a quantifiable difference in terms of resources or deliverables, but the public perception and that perception of these residents of cities has not decreased by and large.

Wait with elections until after the war

Andriy Kulykov: You mentioned that in some cities we lack mayors and have lacked them for quite some time. There’s talk in Ukraine about presidential and parliamentary elections, but there’s almost no discussion of the need for local self-government, elections while in many communities the composition of the population has significantly changed and a lot of internally displaced people came to smaller towns or even to bigger towns and the local councils do not represent anymore the composition of the population. They were voted for by people who either do not live here anymore or have not lived here before the invasion started. Have you polled the population on this, or have you heard any indications about whether people want or don’t want local elections?

Michael Druckman: We have looked at the question of elections in our most recent National survey that we conducted in September as well as the perceptions of newly arrived displaced voters having the ability to vote in their community and there is a bit of a difference between the national and local level. In our most recent survey that we conducted this September the majority of Ukrainians want to see displaced persons participate and in fact, all Ukrainians participate in any national elections including this parliamentary elections whenever they’re scheduled following the war. And that was one of the key findings of that most recent survey: over 60% of Ukrainians want to wait until after the war to hold elections.

Now, with local elections we’re not currently scheduled to hold those until 2025. So, even though the populations have changed in certain cities, that new body of voters will have the opportunity in 2025 to select their Council. We did find this when asking about the attitudes towards displaced persons participating in local elections in their new communities early this year. There was more hesitation by residents of Western Ukraine to see them participating in their local elections as opposed to let’s say the Center or Southern regions of Ukraine.

• But by and large, looking at elections as a whole, we saw the response being that Ukraine should wait until after the war. And that all Ukrainians should have the ability to participate wherever they are.

Unanimity of thought between the East and West

Andriy Kulykov: To you personally as a person who has gone together with us through many trials of this year and the past year: What is the most questionable and what is the most reassuring aspect in the findings of your surveys?

Michael Druckman: I’ll start with the most reassuring. The most reassuring is seeing this incredible national unity that we’ve spoken about before on some of these questions that were very divisive in Ukraine before, particularly those questions that we’re looking at:  the future place and role of Ukraine in the world and in Europe, Ukraine’s EU membership. Ukrainians want to pursue that and not a customs union, for example, with Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan —something we’ve asked for over a decade now. Or their views on joining the NATO alliance if there was going to be a referendum on that was something we saw great division on between the East and South over the years..

• Moving more closely to at least being more open to the idea of EU membership and less negative towards NATO, since February 2022, we see complete agreement, almost within that margin of error, for all regions of Ukraine.

So that is something, and we see this national unity on other, let’s say less divisive questions, everything from winning the war to what will Ukraine’s territorial boundaries be as a result of the war which Ukrainians overwhelmingly say will be all of their territory and that they will win the war. We also see national unity on that. And lastly just let’s say that there’s positive, reassuring dynamics from the surveys when we asked most recently in September about perceptions of holding elections, and what type of election should be held. We don’t see a difference in regions of Ukraine that want to hold elections versus those who don’t. We see the country, you know, where they understand that now is not the time to be organizing and holding an election that may or may not meet democratic standards. But if we go back to 2011 or 12, we saw regions of Ukraine that did want to have either early elections or were deeply dissatisfied with the current government. We saw these splits between the West and the East where Eastern Ukraine felt things were going in the direction they approved of the government, they approved of the parliament. Whereas, Western Ukraine thought things in the country were going in the wrong direction and didn’t approve of the government or the parliament. So I think reassuringly at this time even on some of these political questions, and we try not to discuss too many of them at this time. But even on those questions, we’re seeing at least unanimity of thought between the East and West.

When it comes to what’s maybe more worrying or troubling of  things that we see, it is I guess the opposite of that response. How long can we maintain this unity? We do see slight decreases in numbers of support for NATO, and the EU amongst the East and South, very negligible, but it’s there. If you look at this trend it will be interesting to see as we go through this winter if we do start to see some of this national unity begin to diverge on certain questions, but I think that President Zelenskiy’s comments two or three weeks ago now about we’re not going to hold elections until after the war, that does at least remove one of the most divisive potential issues for Ukraine:  holding elections, which naturally would create division and friction as parties would have to contest in that competition. So that is something to watch, and I think all the more reason we need to all be paying very close attention through this winter.

---

You may also read: Russian invasion of Ukraine: manifestation of collapse of Soviet Union?

---

«Reassuring that people try to find ways to happy moments with their friends and families»

Andriy Kulykov: Michael Druckman heads the International Republican Institute in Ukraine. He’s been with us for many years, and he constantly probes in the Ukrainian public opinion together with his team, of course. So he is a person who can very well make some deep-going conclusions, but now I’m going to ask about a very simple story. You mentioned that most of us, at least those whom you polled, are satisfied with local services like collecting trash, and this brought to me memories of February and March last year when Kyiv was constantly under bombardment, and we had very long curfews but still at around 4 a.m. in my courtyard a truck appeared and the guys in the uniform were removing trash and, you know, I think that you can understand me when I say that this was one of the reassuring sights, although of course, I was worried about the safety of those people. What for you was and is a simple thing that keeps you going?

Michael Druckman: I think when you’re walking around, particularly this past summer but even now, walking in Kyiv, walking in Odessa, any city in Ukraine almost, there are those moments where it does feel like before February 2022. People going about their lives, planning events, celebrating a birthday, planning for different activities, you know. Vacation may not be outside of Ukraine, but they’re planning for some holiday in the Carpathians.

Ukrainian colleagues, still keeping to the traditional holiday calendar and reserving that time during the early part of May, that they’re going to take off. Those moments between the air alarms that bring you back to the current moment. I think are reassuring that we can find a way to go back to before the war. And so just like you seeing the trash collectors coming out I think just seeing, whether it’s Kyiv, Lviv, or Dnipro, going about just regular activities and planning regular moments in their life. That’s reassuring that despite everything, life goes on and people are trying to find ways to have happy moments and create more moments with their friends and families.

Expectation of change 

Andriy Kulykov: And the last question for today. You mentioned polling Ukrainians on, for instance, the territorial span of Ukraine after the war. Have you also asked them about the legal and state-building provisions, like for instance whether we are retaining this presidential-parliamentary republic or do they want to change the state system? And the more general question is whether they want to rebuild Ukraine as it was or whether they want to reinvent Ukraine?

Michael Druckman: It’s a great question. I think you certainly have to feel that Ukraine has turned a corner, that Ukraine will be different, and that the expectations are quite high that it will be better, that this sacrifice and what the country has gone through and losing so many of its best people has to be for something more than we’re going back to business as usual. And I think many of us can remember a bit of the disappointment and the post-Euromaidan Revolution period where it seemed like so much was going to change and so much did in different ways. But there wasn’t that big shift. I think now you have a moment where people want to see their country in Europe, a modern place where their children come home to where they’re building lives. Now you have Europe which is doing so much at the moment as well to enable this to happen, that Ukraine is formally welcomed within the European Union and hopefully within NATO.

So it is a real moment and I think the expectations are high. Let’s not forget that with so many Ukrainians outside the country, they hope to return, they are also experiencing very different things, for instance, in Poland. This emanates from a research that IRI did within the unity project together with IREX.

• You see that Ukrainians are recognizing a very different quality of education, other opportunities for entrepreneurship, high-quality vocational schools. Their expectations are going to be that there are going to be reforms within the Ministry of Education. Just one example.

So expectations are high. They’re being set both by the government of Ukraine and by Brussels, but Ukrainian expectations are going to be very high for the sacrifices that have been made over these last almost two years. And from what they’ve seen in the surrounding countries.

---

You may also read: Russian invasion of Ukraine U.S.-Ukraine Veterans Bridge: «We’re going to hold the line here for democracy and freedom»

---

Please, listen to the full interview, turning on the audio player at the top of the page.