64% of Ukrainians support joining NATO, - survey

If a NATO referendum was held in Ukraine this year, 64% (of those taking part) of Ukrainians would vote for joining the Alliance.

This is proved by the results of a survey conducted in July by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation and the Razumkov Center, Censor.NET reports citing Liga. At the same time, 28.5% would vote against, 7.5% were undecided. The number of supporters of Ukraine's integration with NATO over the past four years has grown substantially. In particular, among all surveyed citizens of Ukraine in 2015, 35.7% of respondents mentioned NATO, when asked about the better security means for Ukraine.

Non-aligned status is supported by 28.8%. 22.9% were undecided. Military alliance with Russia is supported by 7.8%. Military alliance with the United States - 3.2%. "Other" was chosen by 1.6%. It is noteworthy that for a long time, the majority of Ukrainians saw neutral status as a guarantee of security (in April 2012 - 42%), in fact, a significant part of the population (in 2012 - 26%) saw security in a military alliance with Russia.

According to the survey, the main reason in favor of joining NATO is security: the number of those supporting NATO for this reason has increased from 65% in 2012 to 82% in 2015. The second reason is belief that NATO will strengthen the Ukrainian army. The main reason for voting against is, among others, a fear that joining the Alliance will draw Ukraine into the NATO military actions abroad (50% of those who would vote against). Another popular reason for voting against is that "NATO is an aggressive imperialist bloc" (36.6% of those who would vote against).