Methodology

Ipsos Ukraine surveyed 1,750 randomly selected Ukrainian adults residing in the unoccupied territory of Ukraine between 2 August and 7 September 2023 over the telephone, using random digit dialling methodology. The survey did not cover territories under Russian occupation at the time of data collection, including Crimea and parts of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions, thus excluding nearly 20 per cent of the pre-war population. While the estimates based on this sample facilitate our understanding of the war’s effects on the Ukrainian people, we acknowledge the risk of bias, which, apart from the inability to cover Russian-controlled territories where Ukrainian phone numbers do not work, is also due to the temporary absence of a large part of the population who are currently refugees outside of Ukraine. The winter 2022–23 survey was also carried out by Ipsos Ukraine, and used a similar methodology, but included 2,000 respondents.^[1] The 2019 results were obtained through the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology’s nationally representative telephone omnibus survey, with 2,021 respondents (at that time only the Crimea and the occupied parts of Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts were not covered) (Small Arms Survey, 2019). The detailed World Values Survey methodology can be seen in Inglehart et al. (2014), but the survey interviewed a representative sample of 1,500 Ukrainians in 2011, covering the whole country within its internationally recognized borders.

It is important to maintain a degree of caution regarding the credibility of survey respondents’ reporting, particularly concerning firearm possession. This is true even in the Ukrainian context, where civilian firearm possession has become fairly normalized and to a large extent implicitly legalized. But despite this, some people might still feel uncomfortable discussing these issues openly, leading to a risk of under-reporting and, consequently, latency.

This Situation Update has been prepared as part of the project Supporting Ukraine in Addressing the Risks of Small Arms and Light Weapons Proliferation Arising from the Russian War of Aggression. The primary objective of this project is to deliver timely and high-quality research concerning the illicit proliferation of small arms and light weapons in Ukraine. This is especially vital in light of the ongoing, extensive hostilities that have engulfed large areas in and around that country.

^[1] See ‘Notes on the study’ in Hideg and Watson (2023).