Between December 12 and 25, 2014,
Levada-Center carried out a survey of Crimea that was commissioned by John O'Loughlin, College Professor of Distinction and Professor of Geography at the University of Colorado in Boulder, and Gerard Toal (Gearóid Ó Tuathail), Professor of Government and International Affairs at Virginia Tech's National Capital Region campus. The results of that survey were published by Open Democracy in March, 2015, and reported that, overall, 84% of Crimeans felt the choice to secede from Ukraine and accede to Russia was "Absolutely the right decision", with the next-largest segment of respondents saying the decision to return to Russia was the "Generally right decision". The survey commissioners, John O'Loughlin and Gerard Toal, wrote in their Open Democracy article that, while they felt that the referendum was "an illegal act under international law", their survey shows "It is also an act that enjoys the widespread support of the peninsula's inhabitants, with the important exception of its Crimean Tatar population" with "widespread support for Crimea's decision to secede from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation one year ago". Their survey also reported that a majority of Crimean Tatars viewed Crimea's return to Russia as either the "Absolutely right decision" or the "Generally right decision".
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From January 16 – 22, 2015, Germany's GfK Group, with support from the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives, followed-up their pre-referendum survey of Crimeans' voting intention with a post-referendum survey about how satisfied Crimeans are with the outcome of their referendum. GfK's post-referendum survey found that 82% of Crimeans "Fully endorse" Crimea's referendum and return to Russia, while another 11% "Mostly endorse" it.
[39]
From February 9 – 18, 2015, Russian public opinion research centre,
VTsIOM, carried out a door-to-door survey of 1,600 Crimean respondents. The VTsIOM survey asked how people would vote if the same referendum on Crimea's identity that was held in March 2014 were held again at the present time (February 2015). VTsIOM reported that 97% of ethnic Russians, 91% of ethnic Ukrainians, 49% of ethnic Tatars, and 92% of all other ethnic groups would vote for Crimea to join Russia, while 1% of ethnic Russians, 4% of ethnic Ukrainians, 26% of ethnic Tatars, and 2% of all other ethnic groups would vote to remain an autonomous region of Ukraine.
[40]
In November 2017, German pollster ZOiS published the results of a survey which reported that 85.3% of Crimeans excluding Tatars, and 61.8% of Crimean Tatars excluding other Crimean demographics thought that Crimeans would either vote the same or that the majority would vote the same as they did in 2014 if the same referendum were held at the present time (November 2017). 3.8% of Crimeans excluding Tatars, and 16.2% of Crimean Tatars responded that most Crimeans would vote differently if the same referendum were held again at that time in 2017. The ZOiS survey also reported that, among the Crimean population apart from Tatars, when asked what was the reason Crimea became a part of Russia in 2014, 32.9% of respondents said that Crimea became a part of Russia as a result of Kyiv's neglect of the region over many years, 25% of respondents said it happened because of the mobilization of the Crimean population, 24% respondents said it happened as a result of the Euromaidan, and 17.4% said it happened as a result of Russia's action. When the same question was asked of Crimean Tatars, excluding all other demographics in Crimea, 36.3% of respondents said that Crimea became a part of Russia as a result of the Euromaidan, 32.9% said it happened as a result of Kyiv's neglect of the region over many years, 24% of respondents said it happened as a result of Russia's action, and 7.8% said it happened because of the mobilization of the Crimean population.
[41]
In March 2019, Russian public opinion research centre,
VTsIOM, published the results of a new survey of Crimea in which 89% of respondents said they would vote to "reunify" with Russia if a referendum on the matter were held next week. The same survey reported 93% of Crimeans viewed Crimea's "reunification" with Russia in a positive light, while 3% viewed it in a negative light. 86% of respondents said they believed that Crimea is developing more successfully as under Russian control, while 72% said that the "reunification" had a positive effect on their lives and that of their families. 59% of respondents said they had "noticed positive changes on the peninsula in the last year".
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In December 2019,
Levada-Center was again commissioned by John O'Loughlin, College Professor of Distinction and Professor of Geography at the University of Colorado in Boulder, and Gerard Toal (Gearóid Ó Tuathail), Professor of Government and International Affairs at Virginia Tech's National Capital Region campus, to carry-out a survey of Crimea's attitudes towards their referendum and living as a part of Russia. The survey aimed to repeat the questions of their 2014 survey. The 2019 survey found that 82% of Crimea's population supported Crimea's accession to Russia, as opposed to 86% in 2014. The survey also found that 58% of Crimean Tatars now supported Crimea's accession to Russia, as opposed to 39% in 2014.
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