Tolerant and Intolerant Content of Assessments by Ukrainian Students of Subjects Social and Political Life

Relevance. The study focuses on the problem of the attitude of Ukrainians to "good Russians" under the influence of the Russia-Ukraine war. The opinion of student youth is of particular importance. Depending on the holding of a certain personal position, young respondents largely evaluate modern military and political phenomena and processes. Methodology. The task of the online survey of 2,202 students of 35 universities from different regions of Ukraine, conducted in the spring of 2022, was to assess the degree of guilt and effectiveness of the actions of agents of social, in particular, military and political processes. The questionnaire used 5-point scales of semantic differential and subjective scaling. According to the content of the evaluations of the crimes of the Russians and the Russian authorities before Ukrainians, four groups of respondents were distinguished. Their attitudes towards various social and ethno-political subjects are compared. Results. It was found that anti-Russian attitudes significantly prevail in students' evaluations of Russians and the Russian government. A relatively small part of the sample consisted of anti-Ukrainian, neutral and tolerant views towards Russians. The anti-Russian majority most clearly accuses subjects to whom it attributes signs of attraction to the "Russian world". The anti-Ukrainian minority evaluates them positively, but tends to blame Ukrainian society and the Ukrainian authorities. However, the positions of the anti-Russian majority and the anti-Ukrainian minority turned out to be close in their high assessment of the effectiveness of the Ukrainian government and the command of the Armed Forces. Respondents who try to choose neutral assessments partly avoid a clear choice, and partly hide their pro-Russian sentiments. "Tolerant" respondents, who condemn the Russian authorities, but do not condemn Russians, tend to blame all those in power and to excuse "ordinary people" regardless of their nationality or citizenship.