When Russia invaded Ukraine within the spring of 2022, President Vladimir Putin incorrectly assumed it might be a swift takeover.
Actually, 3 years on, negotiators from each international locations are tentatively exploring the speculation of a negotiated means out of a in large part stalemated warfare.
So what did the Kremlin’s preliminary review get fallacious? Excluding underestimating the vulnerabilities of Russia’s army, analysts have urged that Moscow additionally miscalculated the make stronger Russia would obtain from Ukrainians within the nation’s east who’ve shut ethnic ties to Russia.
Our not too long ago revealed find out about on Ukrainian sentiment towards Russia prior to and after the invasion backs up that statement. It demonstrates that even the ones Ukrainians who had shut ties to Russia according to ethnicity, language, faith or location dramatically modified allegiances in an instant following the invasion. For instance, simply previous to the invasion of 2022, local Russian audio system in Ukraine’s east tended responsible the West for tensions with Russia. However in an instant after the invasion, they blamed Moscow in more or less the similar numbers as non-Russian-speaking Ukrainians.
Additionally, this shift was once no longer only a short-lived response. 3 years after the invasion, we adopted up on our survey and located that Ukrainians nonetheless blame Russia for tensions to some extent that was once by no means so unanimous prior to 2022.
A herbal experiment
Our find out about is a part of a bigger undertaking exploring how efficient Russian propaganda has been at influencing Russian-speaking adults in sure former Soviet states. Our inaugural survey was once introduced within the fall of 2020, whilst the query referring to tensions between Ukraine and Russia was once first posed in February 2022, in an instant previous to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Surveys had been finished by way of over 1,000 Russian-speaking other people in Ukraine − aside from Crimea and the breakaway Donbas area for safety causes − and in Belarus. Whilst the spring surveys in Ukraine had been carried out in particular person, the others had been executed by way of phone because of the political state of affairs in each and every nation.
Belarus was once selected as it stocks a identical historic, linguistic and ethnic background to Ukraine, however the two countries have diverged of their geopolitical paths. In a while after the autumn of the Soviet Union in 1991, Belarus, like Ukraine, solid forward in making an attempt to construct democratic programs. However after Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko got here to energy in 1994, the rustic develop into an authoritarian state with a top dependence on Russia for political and financial make stronger.
In large phrases, Ukraine has had an reverse trajectory. Members of the family between Ukraine and Russia fluctuated over the preliminary years of independence. However for the reason that Maidan revolution of November 2013 to February 2014, a staunch pro-Western management has emerged.
Nonetheless, sure segments of the inhabitants in Ukraine endured to carry affinities towards Russia – maximum particularly, the Russian-speaking older technology within the nation’s east.
Our surveys supply one of those herbal experiment having a look on the have an effect on of a Russian invasion on earlier pro-Russian public sentiment.
Ukraine serves because the “treatment” staff and Belarus as a “quasi-control” staff, with the distinguishing issue being a Russian invasion. The questions we requested: “Who do you think is responsible for the worsening tensions between Russia and Ukraine?” and “In general, how do Russian policies affect your country?”
Ukrainian, American and Russian delegates meet for peace talks on Would possibly 16, 2025, in Istanbul, Turkey.
Arda Kucukkaya/Turkish Overseas Ministry by means of Getty Photographs
Converging blame
We discovered that during Ukraine, however no longer in Belarus, geopolitical perspectives had been sharply unified by way of the enjoy of the invasion. On one degree, this isn’t unexpected – in the end, the folks of a rustic being invaded could be anticipated to carry some extent of resentment to the invading military.
However what we discovered maximum attention-grabbing is this impact in Ukraine hugely overrode the cut up amongst quite a lot of identities prior to the invasion. This was once maximum outstanding in other people’s perceptions of who was once responsible for emerging tensions.
Previous to the invasion, 69.7% of respondents in Ukraine general blamed Russia for the tensions between the 2 international locations, with 30.3% blaming NATO, Ukraine or the U.S. Via August 2022, 97.3% of respondents in Ukraine blamed Russia for the tensions, with handiest 2.7% blaming NATO, Ukraine or the U.S.
Via comparability, within the neighboring nation of Belarus, 15.5% of respondents blamed Russia for the tensions previous to the invasion, and handiest 21.9% of respondents blamed Russia for the tensions after the invasion.
This close to unanimity in Ukraine mask the large shifts you notice when damaged down for demographic variations. For instance, blame various extensively throughout areas of Ukraine prior to the invasion however converged after the invasion. Previous to the invasion, handiest 36.0% of respondents within the east of Ukraine and 51.4% of respondents within the south of Ukraine blamed Russia for the tensions. After the invasion, over 96% of respondents in each areas blamed Russia.
A identical impact can also be noticed throughout different demographic variations. Best 30.6% of Catholics in Ukraine blamed Russia for the tensions previous to the invasion, whilst 83.0% blamed Russia in a while.
What had been as soon as stratified critiques prior to the invasion changed into uniform in a while.
To test that this pattern was once no longer simply an instantaneous post-invasion blip, we carried out the surveys once more in September 2024 and February 2025. The total percentage of Ukrainians who blamed Russia for the tensions remained top, with 85.7% and 84.5%, respectively. And once more, those effects held around the quite a lot of demographic breakdowns.
In February 2025, the latest survey, 77.2% of respondents within the east of Ukraine and 83.0% of respondents within the south blamed Russia. Catholics throughout Ukraine endured responsible Russia, with 90.7% in September 2024 and 90.6% in February 2025. Total, there was a small drop within the percentages of the ones blaming Russia – with warfare fatigue a conceivable explanation why.
Penalties for peace
Our findings counsel that during occasions of collective danger, divisions inside of a society generally tend to vanish as other people come in combination to stand a commonplace enemy.
And that will have massive penalties now, as quite a lot of events, together with the U.S., have a look at peace proposals to finish the Russia-Ukraine warfare. A few of the choices being explored is a situation by which the present entrance traces are frozen.
This could entail spotting the Russian-occupied territory of Crimea and the separatist areas of Donetsk and Luhansk as a part of Russia. However it might additionally successfully relinquish Ukraine’s southeastern provinces of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia to Russia.
Whilst our surveys can not talk to how this may increasingly cross down a few of the other people of Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk, the find out about did come with Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. And our findings display that the sense of Ukrainian id reinforced even amongst Russian-speaking other people in the ones spaces.
