On January 4, the Ukraine Crisis Media Center presented the initiative Free Crimea created with the support of the Canadian Embassy in Ukraine and the company Berta Communications. As the organizers say, their main goal is to resist to the Russian aggression by informing the society.
The political expert Taras Berezovets, who is the project leader, said that today there is no systematization and sequence of actions in the question of returning Crimea in Ukraine. The expert thinks that now Crimea is an island cut off from the mainland Ukraine in all directions, so the strategy of its return is formed around two key points: wise program and information policy.
“Today Crimea is transforming into an island, which is cut off in informational, cultural and transport areas. Two key things that we, being a civic society, have to concentrate our efforts on are creating new mass media oriented towards Crimeans and developing a national strategy for the reintegration of Crimea. In view of this, the project will join efforts with the Crimean Institute for Strategic Studies and the Interfactional association Krym,” Berezovets said.
Within statistical error
The project coordinators ordered the research of socio-political attitudes of the Crimean population from one of the sociological companies in order to ensure the efficient work. The research organization GfK Ukraine interviewed 800 residents aged 18 and older in cities with the population of at least 20 thousand people. The interview was held by phone, the interviewers called the landline numbers, which are served by the company Ukrtelecom (the opinion poll was not held in Sevastopol because Ukrtelecom was liquidated there). The deputy director of the company GfK Ukraine Gleb Vyshlinskiy added that this research method has its disadvantages – due to the fact that sociologists ignored the Crimean villages, the opinion of many ethnic Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars might be not taken into account.
“Since the level of telephone services is very low in the villages, we limited ourselves to the cities with the population of at least 20 thousand people. That’s why, our assessment may bring underreporting of opinions of the ethnic Ukrainians living in Crimea and the Crimean Tatars,” the deputy director of the company GfK Ukraine Gleb Vyshlinskiy said.
In addition, the sociologist noted that earlier many Crimeans were afraid not only to answer the questions of socio-political subject but also interview others.
The company turned attention to two key moments in its research: the attitude of residents to the Russian, Ukrainian and local mass media and the socio-political moods of the society.
Socio-political attitudes on the peninsula
According to social studies, 82% of Crimeans fully support the annexation of Crimea to Russia. More than half of those, who don’t support it, think that the annexation was not completely legal and it should be conducted in accordance with international rules.
In this case, 77% of respondents consider themselves Russians and only 13% – Ukrainians. The project ideologist Taras Berezovets explains what caused such results:
“We can compare these data with the 2011 census, when 58.5% of the population called themselves Russians, that is, another 20% added to these results. There is no need to be scared of these figures, it is necessary to understand that we don’t have any other polling methodology, except the telephone one. Accuracy of our research in the 3.5%” is caused by the pressure of security services and wiretapping.”
Most of older residents of the peninsula worry about the military conflict in the east of Ukraine (42%). At the same time, the young and middle-aged people are concerned about inflation, price rise and ruble downing. The financial standing of people didn’t change much, except for pensioners (56+ age group), among which more than 30% talk about improving the well-being. 5% of interviewed citizens say that they heard the ring of change instead of the rustling of banknotes in their pockets.
The attitude to mass communications
Most interviewed Crimeans watch the Russian TV channels. However, only 10% of residents believe in the quality of news. Russia-24 is the most popular channel among viewers. At the same time the Ukrainian TV channels are popular among 28% of respondents, most of them prefer the TV channel Inter.
The Internet is the second means to reach the audience in Crimea, it touches mainly young and middle-aged people. But radio and the press are traditionally targeted to the pensioners.
Fans of the Internet have their own tastes – the social network Facebook that recently became a powerful platform to inform the society about world events is not interesting for Crimeans. They prefer the networks Vkontakte and Odnoklassniki. Mail.ru (Russia), ukr.net (Ukraine) and the news portal “Novosti Kryma” lead among the news websites and news agencies.
A special TV channel
It has repeatedly been said about the creation of a special Ukrainian TV channel that will broadcast in Crimea. More than half of respondents support the idea to create a special channel for the peninsula that will provide the “reliable information”.
The only problem is the definition of reliability – according to the poll, 45% of interviewed people don’t consider the information providing by the Ukrainian mass media reliable.
57% of Crimean respondents agree to read a specially created news website but under the same terms of “reliability”.
The Crimean political expert and representative of the Crimean Institute for Strategic Studies Sergey Kostinskiy said that the data received during the poll will be the basis for planning the specific steps that Ukraine should make. The expert thinks that the Ukrainian authority is not consistent in its actions:
“Today it is very important to formulate the position of the Ukrainian state regarding Crimea because it is not articulated. While the Russian government has the strategy, the actions of the Ukrainian state are not consistent, non-systemic and it makes decisions as the occasion requires. As a result, we make some steps helping disintegrate Crimea from Ukraine.”
There were no specific ways to solve the problem of returning Crimea introduced at the presentation, but the organizers have repeatedly drawn attention to the fact that they will deal with the unstructured activity of the Ukrainian state towards the Crimean peninsula. Free Crimea promises to hold next two events in the near future to discuss the practical steps of the returning Crimea.
