The first steps taken by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his team are positively estimated by 62% of Ukrainian citizens, Director of the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation Iryna Bekeshkina has said.

She said this at a press conference on Monday, presenting the results of a nationwide poll, according to an Ukrinform correspondent.

In particular, according to the poll, in November, the first steps by Zelensky and his team were assessed positively by 19.1% of respondents and mostly positively by 42.9%. At the same time, the figures in August 2019 were 23% and 39.8% respectively.

At the same time, in November 2019, the first steps by Zelensky and his team were assessed mostly negatively by 15.7% of respondents and completely negatively by 8.2%. In August 2019, negative estimates were given by 13% of those polled (9.5% and 3.5%, respectively).

In August 2019, 24.5% of respondents could not assess the first steps by Zelensky and his team, whereas the percentage of such people in November was 14.2%.

Bekeshkina also said how respondents had assessed Zelensky's decisions and proposals.

In particular, she said, 75% of those polled positively evaluate the fact that the head of state initiated negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin to resolve the conflict in Donbas, and 59.2% support the decision to withdraw troops from the contact line.

Also, 70.7% commend the decision to legalize amber production, 63.1% welcome the resumption of the dialogue with Poland on problematic historical issues, and 48.6% support the full updating of the Central Election Commission.

"The following decisions are negatively perceived - the decision to introduce the agricultural land market (positively seen by 24% and negatively seen by 58%), the decision to privatize large state-owned enterprises (negatively - 55%, positively - 22%). But, as we can see, even the negative assessments of these very important decisions for the country did not greatly influence the overall positive assessment of the president's activity," Bekeshkina said.

At the same time, Scientific Director of the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation Oleksiy Haran emphasized that "the society supports the president's steps on Donbas if these ideas are formulated in a general way."

"For example, when asked whether people support negotiations with Putin to resolve the conflict in Donbas, the answer is 'yes.' The decision to withdraw troops? [...] It sounds rather general. And when we ask people more specific questions, that is, the question of securing a special status [for Donbas] in the Constitution, as insisted by Russia, full amnesty, elections in certain areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions on the terms of this party, or the formation of the people's police, etc., then most people answer 'no, we don't want that.' So when the formulas are abstract, the answer is 'yes.' And when you ask specifically, the situation is different," Haran said.

A nationwide public opinion survey was conducted by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation in cooperation with Kyiv International Institute of Sociology from November 4 to November 19, 2019.

The survey was conducted in 110 populated localities in all regions of Ukraine, except for the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, and in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, it was conducted only in the territories controlled by Ukraine.

A total of 2,041 questionnaires were collected after the field stage. The sampling error does not exceed 2.3%.

The survey was funded by the EU Delegation to Ukraine.

In addition, the study compares the results of national surveys conducted by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation in cooperation with the Razumkov Center (June 13-20, 2019 and August 16-22, 2018) and Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (August 9-18, 2019).

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