Nearly eight months into Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine, citizens in core western alliance countries show little appetite for the kind of concessions to Russia that might form part of an eventual agreement to end the fighting, according to a major survey.
The YouGov-Cambridge globalism project, which gauged public opinion in 25 of the world’s largest countries, also found strong support for maintaining, and often toughening and expanding, military and economic measures against Moscow.
But while the survey found respondents in most western nations in an uncompromising mood, multiple countries around the world – including some in the west – were markedly more ambivalent, or even sympathetic, towards Russia.
“If Putin is counting on waning western resolve, this research suggests more bad news for his beleaguered military campaign,” said Joel Rogers de Waal, YouGov’s academic director. “But it’s not an international consensus.”
The polling, between 24 August and 22 September, found that of 13 western or anglophone countries – France, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Spain, Italy, Greece, Hungary, Poland, the UK, US, Australia and Canada – a “core group” of 10 backed maintaining economic sanctions on Russia. Greece, Hungary and Italy were outliers.
Among the remaining 10 countries, support for sanctions ranged from a low of 57% or 58% in France and Germany, through 60%, 62% and 65% in Canada, the US and Poland, to highs of more than 70% in the UK, Sweden and Denmark.
In those same 10 countries, significant numbers – 62% in Poland, 57% in Sweden, 50% in the UK, 40-50% in France, Germany, Spain and the US – also felt existing sanctions were “not harsh enough” and should be strengthened.
Many western voters were willing to pay a price for this, with about half or more – 66% in Denmark, 63% in the UK – favouring sanctions even if their living costs increased slightly (support dipped if a “large increase” was implied, but by no more than about 10 points).
Militarily, there was substantial backing for Nato aid to Ukraine’s forces, including the supply of arms, intelligence and out-of-country training; cyber and information warfare aimed at the Russian government; and even for military advisers inside Ukraine (as long as they stayed out of the fighting).
A majority in all 10 core western countries also favoured deploying non-violent “hybrid warfare” measures, such as targeting Russian media with alternative information – but there was little core western support (30-40% in most countries, falling to just 20% in Germany) for direct Nato military involvement.
“For all the public noise this year about the dangers of global nuclear catastrophe erupting from the war, a lot of western voters are undaunted in their view that Nato should continue sustaining the Ukrainian war effort,” Rogers de Waal said.
Perhaps most intriguingly, most western respondents showed little appetite for much – if any – compromise with the Kremlin over how the conflict might end.
The survey asked whether they would support various concessions to Moscow – an end to sanctions, Russian sovereignty over Crimea, independence for Donetsk and Luhansk, and a guarantee that Ukraine would not join Nato – if Russia agreed to stop fighting and to give up all, most, some or none of its Ukrainian territorial gains.
“What’s striking is how generally low the level of support is for giving concessions to Russia in any of those scenarios – and how the difference between Russia relinquishing all of its newly occupied Ukrainian territory and none makes only a limited difference to the overall result,” Rogers de Waal said.
Only 13% of respondents in France, for example, backed recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea if Moscow gave up none of its new Ukrainian territory – but the percentage was not very different (17%) if it surrendered all of it. In Germany, the corresponding figures were 20% for “all” and 17% for “none”; in Sweden 13% and 10%, in Spain 18% and 16%; Poland 12% and 11%, Britain 10% and 6% and the US 15% and 13%.
Three European countries were consistent exceptions in the west. Asked whether Nato was doing too much to help Ukraine, only 7% in Denmark, Poland and the UK answered yes – but the figures in Italy, Greece and Hungary were 22%, 23% and 31%.
At 37% and 32%, support in Greece and Hungary for maintaining sanctions on Russia was half some western countries, while barely a fifth of Greek and Hungarian respondents backed Nato sending heavy weapons to Ukraine, against 44% in France, 57% in the UK and 65% in Poland. Italy often fell between Hungary and Greece, on the one hand, and the core western bloc on the other.
Similarly, Greece, Hungary and Italy were significantly more likely to favour concessions to Russia: for example, 31% of respondents in Greece, 28% in Hungary and 23% in Italy favoured recognising Russian sovereignty over Crimea even if Russia gave up none of its new Ukrainian territory, against 8% in Denmark and 6% in the UK.
Beyond the west – the survey also covered Brazil, Mexico, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, India, Japan, Indonesia, Thailand, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa – many other countries were markedly more pro-Russian.
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For example, only about 35% of respondents backed economic sanctions in Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and Thailand, and barely a third in Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia supported Nato sending heavy weapons to Ukraine.
The propaganda war
Only minorities in 25 countries around the world – ranging from 3%-6% in the UK and Spain to 22% in India and 23% in Saudi Arabia – believe the world would be a safer place if Russia achieved its aims in Ukraine.
In the west, most respondents overwhelmingly rejected the narrative spun by Moscow to justify its invasion of Ukraine and broadly accepted the alliance view of what was causing the war, the YouGov-Cambridge study found.
“If the Kremlin has failed to achieve its original military aims on the ground in Ukraine, so it has also struggled to prevail in the wider information war to define the causes of and justifications for the conflict,” Rogers de Waal said.
In the same 10 core western countries, including the US, UK, France, Germany, Sweden and Poland, barely 20% – and just 8% in the UK – said they believed Russia’s line that the invasion aimed to protect ethnic Russians from genocide.
Similarly low numbers accepted another Russian argument, that Ukraine had fallen under the influence of nazism, with slightly more – but generally less than 25% – believing Moscow’s claim that the west had tried use Ukraine as a base to threaten Russia.
Among the core 10, the western view that Russia had invaded because Putin did not view Ukraine as a proper country, and that the war was driven by Russian imperialism and a desire to increase Russia’s global status, was backed by 65%-79%.
Again, however, Greece, Hungary and to a lesser extent Italy were notable exceptions in Europe, with 43% of Greeks believing Kyiv was in the grip of Nazi sympathisers and 41% of Hungarians saying the west had sought to threaten Russia from Ukraine.
Several countries in the Middle East and Africa, including Turkey, reflected similar beliefs – although, significantly, all 25 countries around the world showed strong, generally majority support for the view that it was Russian imperialism and status that lay behind the war.
On the key question of whether Russia was more to blame than the west, responses followed broadly the same pattern, with strong majorities in the core western alliance (up to 78% in Sweden, Denmark and the UK) blaming Russia, and correspondingly very low numbers (4% in Poland, 6% in Spain, 7% in France) blaming the west.
In Greece and Hungary, however, only 37% and 35% said Russia was more to blame, although those percentages were still greater than those pointing the finger at the west.
Outside the west, the numbers saying Russia bore responsibility for starting for the war were also lower: 23% in Egypt, for example, 26% in Turkey, 34% in Thailand, 44% in Nigeria.
But, tellingly, of all the 25 countries surveyed, only in Saudi Arabia, India and Indonesia did more respondents (24%, 28% and 26%) believe that the west was more to blame for the war in Ukraine than was Russia (23%, 27% and 15%).