changes in russian nationalist public opinion 2013–14the Ukraine crisis. For one thing, although the Kremlin has
waged a ponderous diplomatic campaign to prevent Ukraine
and other countries from taking further serious steps on the
path to EU integration, the vast bulk of Russians do not think
that Russia should be interfering in these countries’ sovereign
choices. Asked how Russia should react to the possibility of
Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia and Armenia joining the EU, at
least two- thirds of the respondents in each case thought that
Russia should do nothing, neither helping nor hindering this
prospect. There was only a small minority, well under a third of
the survey population, who thought that Russia should be doing
something to stop these countries from EU accession. Similarly,
asked what Russia should do in its relations with Ukraine, 44
per cent opposed any kind of Russian interference – more than
the combined total who wanted Russia to help Ukraine elect a
pro- Russian government (27 per cent), to divide up Ukraine (12
per cent) or help it join the Eurasian Union (4 per cent). A very
small minority (3 per cent) even wanted Ukraine to be assisted
in joining the EU.
Similarly, respondents appeared to have no clear understand-
ing of the geographic concept of ‘Novorossiia’ that forces allied
with the Kremlin have been promoting. As Marlene Laruelle has
detailed, this concept – until very recently a relatively obscure
term referring to regions of Ukraine that were incorporated into
the Russian Empire mostly in the eighteenth century and that in
the Soviet period contained a significant percentage of primar-
ily Russian- speaking people – has been newly politicised as a
way of driving an identity wedge between these people and the
rest of Ukraine (Laruelle 2015a). The 2014 NEORUSS survey,
however, reveals that when people are asked what it is and given
a list of possible answers to choose from, few agree on exactly
what it refers to. (See Table 7.1.) For example, while 16 per cent
correctly identified Novorossiia as referring to all of the regions
of Ukraine along the Azov and Black Seas, the most common
answer was that it referred to the same thing as the Donbas (30
per cent), most likely reflecting the Donbas rebels’ proclamation
of a ‘Novorossiia’ in the areas they control.