A-Infos (en) Poland, FA: Ending the War in Ukraine - Public Opinion Polls (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

The war in Ukraine continues. Successive peace talks have failed. It is 
interesting to analyze the polls to learn about the views of Ukrainian, 
Russian, and Polish society on war and peace. ---- Almost from the very 
beginning, just a month after the outbreak of the full-scale war in 
February 2022, peace talks began in Istanbul. Then, as now, European 
leaders urged the Ukrainian authorities to continue their resistance. 
Among others, Boris Johnson, then head of the British government, is 
said to have persuaded Kyiv that the fight should continue. However, the 
immediate reason for the breakdown of the Istanbul talks is not the 
urging of European leaders, but the discovery of the Russian crime in 
Bucha. Regardless, the peace negotiations were interrupted, and 
Ukrainian troops conducted a successful counteroffensive from August to 
November of that same year, recapturing a significant portion of the 
country occupied by Russia.

However, Kyiv failed to regain control of all the lost lands, and in 
2023 the situation began to systematically deteriorate, both on the 
front lines and within the country: mass migration, a deteriorating 
economic situation, corruption in the government and at lower levels of 
government, as well as in the military. It is hardly surprising that, 
according to Gallup polls, Ukrainian support for continuing the fight 
against Russia "until final victory" plummeted from 73% in 2022 to 24% 
in 2025. At the same time, the percentage of Ukrainians who believe 
their country should strive to end the war as quickly as possible 
increased from 22% to 69% during the same period.[1]

There is little doubt that Ukrainian society expects peace, even at the 
cost of losing Crimea, Donbas, and Luhansk. This is evidenced not only 
by the shift in Ukrainian public opinion, but also by "hard data" 
regarding, for example, refusal to serve in the army and mass 
desertions. In October 2025, statistics were published that allegedly 
showed that there were four times more cases for evading military 
service than for the same period a year earlier (in the same period of 
2024, there were approximately 50,000 cases for 
desertion).[2]Unfortunately, we can no longer verify these online 
reports, as the Prosecutor General of Ukraine ultimately classified the 
data on cases against deserters.

Regarding Russia, a Levada Center poll from July 2025 showed that 78% of 
Russians support their military's actions in Ukraine (46% "strongly 
support," 32% "somewhat support"), while 16% oppose them. This 
percentage of support has been relatively stable for some time.

On the other hand, the number of Russians supporting peace talks with 
Ukraine has significantly increased over time. At the beginning of the 
conflict, the percentage of respondents in Russia supporting war and 
peace was more evenly distributed, and in May 2023, even more people 
supported continuing military operations (48%) than end-of-war talks 
(45%). Research from July 2025 indicates that currently 63% of 
respondents support peace negotiations with Ukraine, while significantly 
fewer, 30%, support continuing the war.[3]

Public opinion polls in Russia raise an important methodological issue. 
As we know, the Kremlin authorities have introduced quite strict 
censorship and laws punishing speaking on the Ukrainian side. Prison can 
be imposed not only for specific actions, such as setting fire to a 
recruitment headquarters or providing financial support to Kyiv, but 
also for published words. Many people are imprisoned for these actions. 
This does not encourage honest disclosure of views on the war. 
Therefore, according to some commentators, mass refusal to participate 
in surveys on this topic is observed in Russia, reaching levels of 90 
percent or more, and therefore the results are unreliable. In fact, in 
the case of face-to-face surveys conducted under "normal" conditions, 
refusal should not exceed 50 percent, and in the case of telephone 
interviews, 70 percent. The high refusal rate may indicate that Russian 
society holds a more critical view of the military operations in Ukraine 
than official polls suggest.

When it comes to Poles, we are probably all aware, as confirmed by 
systematic public opinion polls (e.g., by CBOS), that sentiment on the 
issue of war and peace in Ukraine has changed significantly in Poland. 
In 2022, the vast majority of Poles (59% to 64% of respondents, 
depending on the month of the survey) believed that "the fight should 
continue and no concessions should be made to Russia," while only 23-26% 
supported peace, even if it meant Ukrainians losing some of their lands 
or independence. However, over time, as the scales of victory began to 
tilt increasingly in Russia's favor, these opinions reversed. In the 
latest CBOS poll (published in January 2026), 33% of respondents 
supported continuing the war, while 54% believed it must be ended at all 
costs. Furthermore, when asked how the war in Ukraine would end, a full 
63% of respondents claimed that Kyiv would have to relinquish part of 
its territory, while few believed - only 8% - that Russia would withdraw 
from the occupied territories.[4]

In summary, as we can see, the vast majority of Ukrainian, Russian, and 
Polish society supports ending this armed conflict. I dare say that were 
it not for the censorship and propaganda perpetrated by all three 
governments, only a handful of supporters of the war would exist. 
Jaroslaw Urbanski

www.rozbrat.org

References:

[1]https://www.belfercenter.org/research-analysis/polls-show-ukrainians-increasingly-want-end-war-not-under-russias-terms

[2]See: 
https://www.rozbrat.org/publicystyka/analizy/4897-armia-dezerterow-coraz-wiecej-osob-w-ukrainie-uchyla-sie-od-sluzby-wojskowej

[3]https://www.levada.ru/2025/08/05/konflikt-s-ukrainoj-v-iyule-2025-goda-klyuchevye-sobytiya-vnimanie-podderzhka-otnoshenie-k-peregovoram-mnenie-ob-uspeshnosti-spetsoperatsii-obespokoennost-problemami-v-rabote-aeroportov/

[4]CBOS, "Poles on the War in Ukraine and Aid to Refugees," Research 
Report 2/2026.

https://federacja-anarchistyczna.pl/2026/01/26/zakonczenie-wojny-w-ukrainie-badania-opinii-publicznej/
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