The survey found out what Ukrainians associate with the phrases “ordinary Russians” and “Russia”
Kyiv • UNN
Most Ukrainians have negative associations with the words 'Russia' and 'ordinary Russians'. 94% of the statements about Russia and 80% about ordinary Russians are negative, according to the KIIS poll.
The phrase “ordinary residents of Russia” evokes negative associations for most Ukrainians. This is evidenced by the data of the survey of the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), which was conducted in the winter and spring of 2024, UNN reports .
Details
The majority of Ukrainian respondents surveyed said that they only think of negative things when they hear “Russia” in statements. According to the KIIS survey, “94% of the cases of statements about ‘Russia’ are negative or critical”. The situation is somewhat better with the phrase “ordinary Russians” - in 80% of cases, the words and phrases are negative.
Research on the level of crystallization of negativity towards Russia and Russians
KIIS regularly asks questions about attitudes toward Russia and ordinary Russians
Currently, the sociologists asked respondents to say in an open-ended manner what “the first two or three words come to your mind when you hear the word/phrase Russia or ordinary Russians”. To make the format of the question more flexible, some respondents were asked about “Russia” and some about “ordinary Russians.
If a person maintains a warm attitude towards ordinary Russians, then in an open form one can either say “I don't know”, “they don't have any” or say something neutral, such as “relatives”.
At the same time, it should be understood that neutral words are not evidence of a warm attitude, but rather of a lower crystallization of negativity. That is, if a person hates Russia with all his or her heart, the first two or three words will be a variation of hatred, not neutral reasoning.
After the polls in 2024, a graph was published showing the distribution:
how many of the words can be considered conditionally negative/critical of Russia/Russians;
conditionally neutral or even positive;
also indicates the % of those who answered “I don't know or have no associations.
Word/phrase cloud:
In 94% of cases, statements about “Russia” are negative or critical, and in only 5% of cases are they neutral or positive (and another 1% could not answer). As for “ordinary Russians,” the situation is only slightly better: in 80% of cases, words and phrases are negative, and in 6% of cases they are neutral or positive (and another 14% said they had no associations or could not answer)
