Are European values close to Ukrainians? What is the Russian imperial project like? How has the war influenced the formation of the Ukrainian political nation? Are Ukrainians receptive to authoritarianism? All this and much more was discussed in an interview on the "(Na)memory" podcast of the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance by the director of the Institute of Sociology of the NAS of Ukraine 
corresponding member of the NAS of Ukraine Yevhen Holovakha.
The scholar outlined what Ukrainians were like at the dawn of Independence, how they perceived their identity, calling it "unrealistic optimism": "People believed that the very fact of independence was already a prerequisite for social well-being." As for recent years, Yevhen Holovakha noted that in 2021, two-thirds of the population had rather negative expectations about Ukraine's prospects; however, the full-scale invasion of 2022 surprisingly and sharply changed the mindset: Ukrainians' attitude towards the state as independent is now steadily positive, while their attitude towards the state as a governing apparatus is more critical.
The sociologist assesses Ukrainians' attitude towards authoritarianism as negative: in his opinion, Ukraine has historical traditions of military and Cossack democracy, and accordingly, sole power is perceived as mentally alien, which distinctly differentiates Ukrainian political culture from the Russian one.
Watch the video recording of the interview
According to information from the Institute of Sociology of the NAS of Ukraine