Around 30 percent of survey respondents in Ukraine believe that corruption should be punished with the death penalty, and 41 percent believe that the offence should carry a life sentence, according to a survey of 600 respondents across all regions of Ukraine between June 8 and 13.
Of the remainder of respondents, 22 percent believe that even such extreme measures would not help to overcome corruption, said Yelena Boyarkina, head of the Ukrainian sociological firm SocioStreamAG, which carried out the research: "Only four percent believe that the current system of combatting corruption gives effective results."
The death penalty has been outlawed in Ukraine since 2000, after the Verkhovnaya Rada voted to change the country's penal code.
Despite becoming a member of the Council of Europe in 1995, which requires member states not to apply the death penalty, the last execution was carried out in Ukraine in 1997.
