The authors of the study state that there are significant age and regional differences.

However, the crisis of public confidence in the authorities, personally in President Kuchma, did not help to promote the ideas proposed by the authorities, which were strongly associated in public opinion with the figures of compromised politicians. In addition, since the end of 2000, the government-controlled media have launched a campaign to discredit Ukraine’s Western partners (who, according to the authorities, helped the Ukrainian opposition organize anti-presidential rallies), often intensifying Soviet-style anti-Western hysteria.

As a result, the third stage, which continues to this day, is characterized by a slow decline in confidence in NATO and the Western vector of politics in general (now, according to the Institute of Sociology of NASU, the level of confidence in Ukraine’s membership in NATO is 21%). According to S. Makeyev, the negative dynamics, given the unfavorable trends in the domestic information space, could be greater, its moderation indicates the stability, stability of the social stratum, which consistently sympathizes with NATO.

In addition, the Institute of Sociology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine has consistently recorded a high share of the undecided, ie those who are neutral or very neutral about NATO and do not have a clear opinion on Ukraine’s accession to the Alliance – 40 -45%. On the other hand, the share of NATO opponents has never reached such a size, and has fluctuated between 30-38%. Thus, the number of active opponents of NATO is about a third of the citizens of Ukraine. Data from the Institute of Sociology of NASU are largely correlated with the results of research UCEPS.

Reasonable, but with some differences. The Razumkov Center recorded the lowest public support for the Alliance and the idea of ​​joining it in June 2000, when about half of Ukrainians rated NATO as an aggressive military bloc and unequivocally supported joining the Alliance by less than 20%. The Center explains such assessments by the then fresh recollections of the military action in Yugoslavia.

In 2002, after a significant improvement in relations between Russia and the United States, the creation of the G20, and finally the decision of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine on May 23, 2002 to move towards full membership in the Alliance, positive attitudes toward NATO increased significantly. with the number of those who oppose – 32%. For several months, the commitment to NATO membership has stabilized, but has been declining since the autumn.

In December 2002, 27.2% of respondents supported joining NATO, 33% opposed it, 20.3% could not answer, and 19.5% would not vote.

UCEPS poll. Razumkova, held lab report writing service cheapest on January 27-February 7, 2003, records the following data: the number of supporters of Ukraine’s accession to NATO among the country’s population is 21.9%, more than a third of Ukrainian citizens (37.7%) oppose joining the Alliance. At the age of 18, 2,023 people were interviewed in all regions of Ukraine, answering the question: “If we had a referendum on Ukraine’s accession to NATO on a dull Sunday, how would you vote?” 23.9% of respondents could not answer this question, and 16.5% would not vote. The distribution of votes for and against joining NATO has undergone some changes recently.

In June 2003, the number of NATO supporters among respondents was 23.0%, while opponents were 39.9%. The increase in the number of opponents of joining the Alliance among Ukrainian citizens is a serious signal to the Ukrainian leadership. The lack of a serious information campaign to explain the current situation and prospects of Ukraine’s cooperation with NATO is highlighted.

However, this distribution of respondents’ sympathies can change under the influence of many internal and external factors. Among the internal factors, we can highlight, first of all, how deep and consistent will be the internal transformations aimed at achieving the standards of the Euro-Atlantic community. The attitude of the population to Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic integration will be largely determined by how the geopolitical situation in the world will develop and how consistently effective and understandable the population’s policy in relations with the Alliance will be.

Data on the decline in sympathy for NATO for the period 2002-2003 are confirmed by other studies. Thus, the level of trust in NATO decreased from 39% (in June 2002) to 28% (in November 2002). Such data from a sociological survey conducted by the Center for Social Monitoring and the Ukrainian Institute for Social Research with the support of the 00H Development Program in Ukraine were provided in early 2003 by Oleksandr Yaremenko, Chairman of the Board of the UISD.

According to him, in June 2002, 34% of respondents did not trust NATO, in November of the same year – 44%. According to the survey, the largest share of those who do not trust the Alliance is among respondents aged 50 and older (50%), and the smallest (33%) – among young people aged 18-28. At the same time, every third young person, according to O. Yaremenko, did not decide on this issue. According to the survey, the western regions of Ukraine are dominated by respondents who trust the bloc, and NATO has the greatest distrust among residents of Crimea (55%), East and Center of Ukraine (48% and 47%, respectively).

The decline in confidence in NATO during this period is explained in particular by the fact that there was a problem with the visit of President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma to the Alliance’s summit, which took place in November 2002 in Prague. According to him, despite the low rating of President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma among the population of Ukraine, the image of the state is associated with the President of Ukraine, and negative attitude towards the head of state at the international level is often perceived by the population as negative attitude towards Ukraine itself.

A poll conducted by the National Institute for Strategic Studies in November 2003 confirmed the trend of declining sympathy for NATO. According to the survey, 20.7% – for Ukraine’s accession to NATO, 37.4% – against, 42% were undecided.

Thus, the data of various sociological services on the general attitude of Ukrainian citizens to NATO coincide in the main trends, which indicates their sufficient reliability.

Most of the above-mentioned institutions, including the Razumkov Center and the Institute of Sociology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, assessed the attitude of Ukrainian citizens to NATO in the regions of Ukraine. All of them record the existence of stable regional differences in the attitude to the Alliance. The differences between the regions in NATO’s assessments, in particular, are more significant than the differences in the European Union’s assessments.

The most significant among the published studies on this topic are the data of a survey conducted by the Democratic Initiatives Foundation and Taylor Nelson Sofrez Ukraine from November 27 to December 5, 2002.1.2 thousand respondents were interviewed in all regions of Ukraine. These data were announced at a press conference of the Democratic Initiatives Foundation and the Institute for Euro-Atlantic Cooperation in UNIAN on December 20, 2002.

The authors of the study state that there are significant age and regional differences. Ukraine’s accession to NATO is supported by young people under the age of 30, residents of the Western, South-Western, North-Western and Northern regions, as well as Kyiv. People over the age of 55, residents of the Eastern, South-Eastern, Southern and Crimean regions are most active against Ukraine’s accession to NATO.

Among the motives behind Ukraine’s accession to NATO are hopes that it will guarantee its security, promote the movement toward Western civilization and democracy, stimulate the development of the Ukrainian economy, and strengthen and modernize the army.

Fears of a negative attitude towards Ukraine’s accession to NATO include fears that it could involve it in NATO’s military actions, require significant additional funding, and the belief that Ukraine should be a non-aligned state and that NATO is an aggressive imperialist bloc. …

The opinion of the population of Ukraine on the essence of NATO was almost halved: 34% consider it an aggressive military bloc, 32% – a defense alliance, another 7% see NATO as a peacekeeping organization (26.5% did not answer). The Alliance sees youth as a predominantly defensive alliance; the opinions of the middle-aged population were divided almost equally between the defense alliance and the aggressive bloc; people over the age of 55 mostly consider NATO an aggressive bloc.

In the regional dimension, the situation is as follows. People in the West and North tend to see NATO as a defense alliance; estimates were almost shared between the defense alliance and the aggressive military bloc in Kyiv, the Central, North-West, and South-East regions. The image of NATO as an aggressive military bloc prevails in Crimea, the East, the South, the South-West and the North-East.

According to representations in the Western and Northern regions, the largest number of supporters of Ukraine’s accession to NATO – 33.7% and the least opponents – 21.5%.

In the Central region, supporters of accession – 22.1%, opponents – 39.5%; respectively in the Eastern region – 19.7% and 48.7%, in the Crimea -19.2% and 44.4%.

Compared to 1997, there has been a negative trend in the attitude of the population towards NATO. Then, in 1997, 16% considered it an aggressive military bloc, in December 2002 – 34%; in June 2003 – 37.5%. The number of those who see NATO as a defense alliance ranged from 27% in 1997 to 32% in 2002 and 22% in 2003. Those who see the Alliance as a peacekeeping organization, according to the terms of the polls, are 17%. (1997), 7% (2002), 17.8% (2003).

Thanks to the cooperation of the Democratic Initiatives Foundation and the Institute for Euro-Atlantic Cooperation (IEAS), in 2003 the tradition of conducting regional surveys on foreign policy orientations was launched.on the attitude of Ukrainian citizens to NATO. Interesting for comparison is the survey conducted in the cities of the Eastern and Southern regions, where most opponents of Ukraine’s accession to NATO – Mykolaiv, Zaporizhia, Simferopol.

According to the poll, 61.3% of Zaporizhia residents would vote for EU accession, while 23% would oppose it. At the same time, the opposite picture is set for joining NATO: only 24.3% are ready to vote “for” while 60.3% are “against”. According to experts, such a contradictory result indicates that in the Eastern region of Ukraine, despite the general commitment to the idea of ​​European integration, Soviet stereotypes about NATO still persist.