World Happiness Report 2023 61 Ukraine and Russia Data from the Gallup World Poll permit us to compare life evaluations, trust in governments, emotions and benevolence in Ukraine and Russia from before the annexation of Crimea in 2014 up to and including the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.69 Crimea has been excluded from all our data because it was not possible to maintain consistent sampling over the past decade. Panel A of Figure 2.7 shows life evaluations in Russia and Ukraine from 2012 through 2022. Life evaluations in Ukraine fell in 2014 by more than a full point on the 0 to 10 scale,70 while rising by half that much in Russia. This gap gradually narrowed over the rest of the decade, with life evaluations in Ukraine and Russia being the same in 2020 and 2021, subsequent to Zelensky’s election on March 31, 2019. In 2022, life evaluations fell by about three-quarters of a point across Ukraine. Both the 2014 and the 2022 changes are very large, providing further evidence, should any still be needed, that life evaluations do respond to major changes in the circumstances of life. Panel B of Figure 2.7 shows approval of each country’s own national leadership, and also the extent to which Ukrainians approved of Russian leadership. The events of 2014 raised Russian evaluations of their country’s leadership, with initially varying effects on Ukrainian evaluations of their national leadership in the different parts of Ukraine. At first, evaluations of the national government were little changed in SE Ukraine71 while rising sharply elsewhere. In 2015 Ukrainian approval of their national government was down everywhere, while in Russia, approval of the national government remained high in 2015 but then gradually fell. The gap between Russian and Ukrainian evaluations of their own governments closed over the rest of the decade until the election year 2019 when approval ratings rose sharply throughout Ukraine. After falling back somewhat in 2020 and 2021, approval of the national government rose sharply in 2022 in both Ukraine and Russia, but by much more in Ukraine than in Russia, quite different from the 2014 pattern. Ukrainian approval of Russian leadership fell sharply in 2014 in all parts of the country. This drop was reversed by approximately 10% in the subsequent years before falling essentially to zero in all parts of Ukraine in 2022. Out of 1,000 residents of Ukraine surveyed in September 2022, only two, both in the southeast, approved of Russian leadership. That this elimination of any Ukrainian approval of Russian leadership was due to the invasion in March 2022 is confirmed by a Ukrainian survey showing some residual approval of Russian leadership as late as February 2022.72 All three negative emotions were more frequent in Ukraine than in Russia in 2014, and again in 2022. The largest increases were for worry, which was experienced by almost 40% of Ukrainian respondents in 2014, and more than 50% in 2022, as shown in Panel C. By contrast, worry was actually less frequent in Russia during the 2014-2016 period, when its frequency was only about half of that in Ukraine. It was also unaffected by the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Photo Adam Winger on Unsplash
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