The report you are holding in your hands is one of the longest and most complex works of the Ukrainian Institute for the Future. In 2017, we set a goal to analyze all possible scenarios for the development of the war in the Donbas. However, the serious problem that we faced was the lack of reliable data. When we began to analyze information about the actual situation, it turned out that there is very little objective data, but a lot more emotions, judgments, and propaganda. In order to forecast and build scenarios, one should rely solely on solid information.

We have started a complex process of gathering and receiving reliable information. Information about the situation in the occupied territories was the most contradictory. Therefore, in the summer of 2018, we decided to hold focus groups in the controlled and occupied territories. It was rather difficult to fulfill this task in the occupied territories, but with the help of the New Image sociological company, which engaged internally displaced persons and its former sociologists, we managed to do it. However, we were shocked by the results. In fact, focus groups from the occupied territories evidentiated that the residents of ORDLO went through a psychological separation from Ukraine, and we are already dealing not just with «occupied Ukrainians», but with a community that is looking for a new definition.

Victor Andrusiv, Executive Director of the Analytical Center «Ukrainian Institute of the Future»

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