Majority of Ukrainian Millennials Believe Donbas War Will End In 5 Years

Defying cynics, Ukraine’s millennials – an age cohort defined as being born between 1981 and 1996 – are more optimistic about an end to the six year conflict in the east of the country than many commentators. According to a recent survey conducted by the Red Cross, which surveyed 16,000 millennials across 16 countries, 69% of Ukrainian respondents said that they expect an end to the Donbas conflict in five years.

The survey also asked Ukrainians on a variety of topics, including on nuclear weapons. 54% of all respondents said that they believe it is highly likely that a nuclear attack will occur in their lifetimes, while only 44% of Ukrainian respondents said the same. But Ukrainians overall believed that nuclear weapons make you safer, a position shared with Israeli millennials. Overall, however, at least 66% of all respondents believe that the use of nuclear weapons is “never acceptable”.

Ukrainians also differed from their counterparts in other nations, save Syria, on the question of whether biological or chemical weapons should be used in conflicts (a grand majority of both countries’ respondents, 90%, said their use is never acceptable.) And Ukrainian millennials demonstrated knowledge of the Geneva Conventions, a U.N. document regulating war, with 76% of respondents indicating familiarity with the document – tying with Russia.

As a whole millennials across the world showed a growing fear of international conflict, though their biggest fears, ranked by the survey, were listed as unemployment, poverty, and corruption.

/By Romeo Kokriatski