Ukraine surprised the world by resisting the Russian invasion in February 2022 and then reversing it around Kyiv in April and Kharkiv in September. Ukrainian society has mobilized in an equally remarkable way. A series of recent polls suggests that the war has increased [1] other Ukrainians’ trust in their local and national government and largely needs the foreign network to empower them and their government to rebuild their damaged country rather than for them.
Ukraine faced the Russian invasion on an already weak basis. Demanding economic situations exacerbated by COVID have captured the attention of Ukrainians more than the Russian profession of Crimea and Donbass or even the risk of Russian invasion in a National Democratic Institute vote in July. August 2021. Respondents accepted slightly more as true in local government than in national government and its agencies, but little accepted as true in neither.
An Ipsos poll from September 2022 shows some of the tactics Ukrainians have suffered in the wake of the invasion. Unemployment has increased in the country and especially in frontline cities. Ukrainians who have not been displaced have suffered a significant loss of income. People living in and near frontline cities are suffering severe degradation of essential services, adding access to blank water, hot water and heating.
But Ukraine has shown remarkable resilience in the face of a Russian attack that intentionally targeted the country’s economic comforts and infrastructure and not just near the front lines. Pay on time, and for those who fall behind, delays are usually less than two weeks. These data suggest that Ukrainians managed to maintain a largely functional economic and monetary formula despite their demanding pre-war situations and the ravages of a brutal invasion.
Ukraine has also controlled to avoid nationalizing or severely unbalancing its economy even as it mobilizes for war. Almost 65% of contracted respondents paint in personal companies, of which 48% are self-employed painters or small or medium-sized enterprises. The survey, of course, does not capture the proportion of Ukrainians recently serving in the armed forces, but the effects clearly show that a supply of personal economy continues to serve as a general despite the horror of war and the rigors of mobilization.
Ukrainians are also looking for tactics to keep essential facilities running in major frontline cities despite constant Russian attacks. More than 99% of respondents had access to electritown, adding a constant hundred in Kharkiv. More than 90% had access to the Internet and more than 98% had cell phone service. More than 80% of citizens in Lviv, Kyiv, Dnipro and Kharkiv reported access to safe drinking water, although only 26% of Mykolaiv citizens said the same. The figure of Kharkiv, the largest city in Ukraine at the moment, is remarkable. Russian forces remained within Kharkiv’s artillery diversity until September and have consistently attacked it with artillery shells, multiple-launch rocket systems and long-varying accuracy. ammunition since February. Russian attacks damage key infrastructure nodes, especially in frontline cities, but Ukrainians manage to repair and maintain their systems in good working order despite those attacks.
The most vital and promising fact to emerge from this survey is that Ukrainians are doing so. International aid and donor communities are now offering aid and reading Ukraine’s wishes to help in post-war reconstruction, but have not taken over the operation. or fixing key infrastructure. Ukrainians commonly do it on their own.
Ukrainians hope to continue doing it themselves, moreover, empowered through the foreign network but not replaced through it. When asked whether their own local or national government, civil society or foreign organizations deserve to be guilty of reconstruction, the vast majority liked the local network. or the Ukrainian national government. This location is notable given the likely decline in acceptance as true in the government establishments that characterized pre-war Ukraine. This suggests that Ukrainians need to rebuild an autonomous state and do not need to become wards of the foreign network. It suggests that they need their government to be able to serve them despite their old and old situations of demands and limitations.
The demanding situations in Ukraine remain immense and will have to be faced with transparent eyes and without illusions. Indications that Ukrainians want their government to function do not mean that it can or will, or even that they think it will. Unemployment remains too high and Ukraine will want giant injections of money and reconstruction aid in the coming months and years to rebuild what the Russians have destroyed. Success is by no means guaranteed.
But there are reasons for hope in a very dark time. Ukrainians have fought the Russian army and are pushing it back with Western weapons and money, but without Western soldiers. They keep their economy alive with Western money, but with their own experience and ingenuity. Ukraine has demonstrated in this terrible litmus test its determination to become flexible and functional. It’s an effort worth investing in.
[1] According to an annual study conducted by the Kyiv International Sociological Institute, accept as true in local and national government an increase from 15% in August 2021 to 82% in August 2022. International Institute of Sociology in Kiev. Opportunities and demanding situations in the face of the democratic transition in Ukraine. National survey. From July 1 to August 3, 2021. https://www. ndi. org/sites/default/files/July 2021 _encuesta biannual – public. pd