Over 70% of Ukrainians expect economic deterioration this winter - survey

The vast majority of Ukrainians are pessimistic about the economic situation this coming winter. Over 70% of citizens expect the economy to worsen, and almost two-thirds predict negative changes in the energy sector.

This is evidenced by the results of an all-Ukrainian survey conducted by the Rating Group sociological group on October 3-5, 2026.

According to the research, 71% of respondents expect the economic situation to deteriorate during the winter, and 63% expect the situation in the energy sector to worsen.

Pessimistic sentiments also prevail in the overall assessment of the country's prospects. More than half of respondents (55%) believe that the situation in Ukraine will worsen this winter. Another 25% do not expect significant changes, while only 12% hope for improvement.

Separately, sociologists found out Ukrainians' expectations regarding the stability of electricity supply during the heating season.

Almost half of citizens (47%) believe that the situation with electricity will be about the same as last winter. At the same time, 39% expect electricity supply to worsen, and 9% hope for improvement.

Rating Group notes that a year ago, Ukrainians' expectations regarding electricity supply were distributed in approximately the same way. That is, despite a significant share of negative assessments, sociologists did not record a significant deterioration in sentiment specifically regarding electricity supply.

At the same time, assessments of the energy situation as a whole are noticeably more pessimistic than expectations regarding the availability of electricity in homes. These are different research questions: the first concerns the state of the entire energy industry, the second - directly electricity supply compared to last winter.

The survey also showed that Ukrainians are somewhat more optimistic about possible changes at the front. 33% of respondents expect the situation to improve this winter, while another 30% believe it will remain unchanged. 22% predict worsening, and 15% could not decide on an answer.

Thus, the economy and energy remain the areas in which Ukrainians have the most negative expectations on the eve of winter. At the same time, the survey results reflect the population's sentiments, not an actual forecast of economic indicators or electricity outage schedules.

The study was conducted using telephone interviews (CATI). It involved 1000 adult respondents from all regions of Ukraine, except for temporarily occupied territories and areas without Ukrainian mobile communication. The stated statistical error does not exceed 3.1 percentage points with a 95% confidence level.

Source: Rating Group