59% of Ukraine citizens would vote against Ukraine’s NATO membership – poll

If the referendum on Ukraine’s joining NATO took place next Sunday, some 59% of Ukrainian citizens would vote against this move.

According to an UNIAN correspondent, these are the results of a poll, carried out by Democratic Initiatives fund and publicized in Kyiv today.

At the same time, some 22% of those polled would support Ukraine’s accession to NATO, and some 19% could not answer the question.

Some 68% of those polled were ready to take part in the referendum on NATO.

According to Democratic Initiatives fund chief Ilko Kucheriv, the poll indicates that the Ukraine’s NATO membership is supported mostly by residents of western regions of Ukraine and Kyiv, and also those who feel themselves Europeans.

Over two thirds of Ukrainian citizens (some 70%) believe it important to get to know more about the concequences of Ukraine’s entering or non-entering NATO.

Only some 16% of those polled said they are well-informed about what is NATO, some 37% have some information, some 31% have little information, and some 16% are not informed at all.

On the whole, only some 6% of respondents believe that the state informs its citizens about NATO at a sufficient level. In the opinion of some 43% of those polled, the useful information is almost absent.

The all-Ukrainian poll was carried out on March 17-31 of the current year.  2000 respondents aged over 18 years old were polled. The error margin does not exceed 2.2%.