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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