Most Ukrainians against giving up territories for security guarantees – KIIS survey
The majority (52%) of Ukrainians categorically reject the proposal to transfer the entire Donbas under the control of the Russian Federation in exchange for security guarantees, while 9% would easily agree to this condition, and another 31% are ready to accept it as a difficult compromise, according to the results of an all-Ukrainian poll conducted on January 23-29 by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS).
It is noted that compared to mid-January, there have been no significant changes in sentiment on this issue.
Some 88% of Ukrainians believe that by striking at the energy sector, the Russian Federation is trying to leave Ukrainians without light and heat and force them to surrender. At the same time, less than 3% have moved to another settlement due to shelling and problems with heating and energy supply, and even less than 7% have left and have already returned.
Some 90% believe that Ukraine should strike at the territory of the Russian Federation. At the same time, 80% of them believe that Ukraine should strike not only at military infrastructure, but also at other facilities.
Only 4% of Ukrainians expect the war to end in the coming weeks, and another 16% - at least in the first half of 2026. Another 18% expect it to end in the second half of this year, the remaining 43% - in 2027 or even later. At the same time, 65% say that they are ready to endure the war as long as necessary (in December and September 2025, there were 62%).
66% of those surveyed expect that in 10 years Ukraine will be a prosperous EU member state (in December 2025 - 64%).
The survey was conducted using the method of telephone interviews (CATI) based on a random sample of mobile phone numbers (with random generation of phone numbers and subsequent statistical weighting) in all regions of Ukraine (the territory controlled by the Government of Ukraine). 1,003 respondents were interviewed. The survey was conducted with adult (aged 18 and older) citizens of Ukraine who, at the time of the survey, lived in the territory of Ukraine controlled by the Government of Ukraine. The sample did not include residents of territories temporarily not controlled by the Ukrainian authorities (at the same time, some of the respondents are IDPs who moved from the occupied territories), and the survey was not conducted with citizens who left abroad after February 24, 2022.
Formally, under normal circumstances, the statistical error of such a sample (with a probability of 0.95 and taking into account the design effect of 1.3) did not exceed 4.1%. At the same time, for the question about the attitude to the transfer of Donbas under the control of the Russian Federation in exchange for security guarantees, an experiment was conducted, where half of the respondents (i.e. about 500) were asked a regular direct question (to what extent it is acceptable for the respondent), and the other half were asked the "imagined acquaintance" method. The margine of error for this question does not exceed 5.8%.
In war conditions, in addition to the specified formal error, a certain systematic deviation is added, but the results obtained still retain high representativeness and allow for a fairly reliable analysis of public sentiment.
