New IRI poll regarding Ukraine and NATO / EU

The International Republican Institute (IRI) just released the results of a massive 22 city 17,000 respondent poll it commissioned earlier this spring on Ukrainians’ attitudes towards politics, corruption, the economy, NATO, the European Union, Russia, and almost anything else you can think of. The 22 cities in which polls were conducted represent all the regional capitals which are currently under the control of the central government, so essentially the capitals of every oblast in Ukraine outside of Lugansk, Donetsk, and Crimea. . . .

Well the headline figures are the following: 57% of respondents to the poll would choose to join the European Union (versus 13% who want to join the Russia-led customs union) while 47% would vote yes in a referendum about joining NATO (versus 29% who would vote no).

At the same time, as the following graphs show, there are still some pretty significant regional differences. On NATO membership the percentage of “nos” ranged from 51% in Odessa to 4% in Lviv. On the question of membership in the European Union, the range was, if anything, even greater: 30% of the residents of Odessa, Kharkiv, and Mykolaiv want to join the EU. Meanwhile in Ternopil 92% do.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/markadomanis/2015/05/20/the-international-republican-institute-just-released-a-fascinating-poll-on-ukraine/

OMG. Train ticket tech support works . . . . WELL. Tears of happiness fill my eyes.

OMG. I’m dizzy with Ukrainian pride. Just for the hell of it, I called tech support for the website that sells train tickets. It was after 9pm.

Not only did someone answer, the lady was perfectly polite and competent!

Just two years ago, buying train tickets was the bane of my existence: http://romaninukraine.com/train-stations-and-supermarkets-in-ukraine/

Ukrainian language documentary about “Fearless Guarding” — the US training effort near Lviv

FYI: There has been US-Ukraine training called rapid Trident since 2009. I’m not sure whether or not it was inspired by the Russian invasion of Georgia. From what I hear, the training in previous years consisted of Ukrainians playing the role of a disorganized enemy for the benefit of US training. In other words, it only provided contact between militaries.

This year, the annual exercise was made bigger, though it’s still modest. 280 Ukrainians have been trained, and there a plans to train another two such groups.