The population of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea after the Russian annexation of 2014 was actually cut off from the rest of Ukraine and lost access to the Ukrainian media. This is evidenced by the results of a representative survey of Crimeans conducted by the Berlin Center for Eastern European and International Studies (ZOiS) in spring and released on Thursday, November 16.

According to ZOiS, only 12 percent of Crimean residents reported that they visited other regions of Ukraine during the last three years, 93 percent admitted that it was much more difficult to move around the territory of Ukraine. Almost 90 percent of respondents noted that they would like to be able to freely cross the border between Crimea and Kherson region in both directions. In Russia, since the annexation of Crimea visited only 22 percent of Crimeans, in other countries - only 3 percent.

It is the isolation of Crimea from the rest of Ukraine became for the authors of the study the greatest surprise. "I was surprised how many Crimeans lost contact with the rest of Ukraine. We know that it is difficult to get to Crimea from other parts of Ukraine. But we did not suspect how large the number of residents of the Crimean people stopped communicating with relatives in other regions of Ukraine, "ZOiS director Gwendolin Zasse said in an interview with DW.

Since the annexation of the Crimea, contacts with their relatives in the rest of Ukraine have maintained at the same level as before, more than 40 percent of the inhabitants of the peninsula. More than 44 percent of survey participants began to communicate with relatives in other regions of the country a little less often than before annexation, and 7.6 percent - more often. 7.3 percent of respondents answered that they do not have relatives in Ukraine.

67.8 percent of Crimeans called themselves ethnic Russians, almost 12 percent - ethnic Crimean Tatars, 7.5 percent - ethnic Ukrainians. Ukrainian language is considered by native to 2.7 percent of respondents, Russian - almost 80 percent, and Crimean Tatar - 8.7 percent. On the Ukrainian house speaks one percent of the respondents, in Russian - 83.7 percent. 4,2 percent speak at home in Ukrainian from time to time. 0.7 percent of Crimeans receive information from Ukrainian media, 75.7 percent from Russian media.

In the "referendum" on the status of the Crimea, held in March 2014 and entrenched the Russian annexation, 7.9 percent of Crimeans did not take part. Almost 79 percent of respondents noted that they would vote the same way as then, 2.4 percent would change their minds.

56 percent of the respondents admitted that they were not surprised by the actions of Russia, which annexed the peninsula.

To the question "where do you feel at home?", 62.7 percent answered that they consider home the place where they live. Over 27 percent called Crimea their home and almost six percent called Russia. Only 0.9% of respondents think that Ukraine is home.

In the sociological study of ZOiS in the spring of this year, two thousand residents of the Crimea and Sevastopol.

Source: DW.