Russian Public Approval of Ukraine War Dropping Rapidly: Survey

Russian public support for Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine has dropped significantly and many more people are now in favor of holding peace talks, according to an opinion poll conducted last month.

Just 45 percent of respondents were in favor of continuing what the Kremlin calls a "special military operation" in Ukraine, a survey conducted between June 16 and 19 by Russian Field, a nonpartisan Moscow-based research company, found. That's down 9 percentage points from a survey the company conducted in April 2022, just weeks after the war started.

In the new poll, 44 percent said Russia should engage in peace talks—up from 35 percent of respondents in April 2022.

In its latest poll, Russian Field surveyed a group of 1,604 people across Russia by phone. It was conducted a few weeks into the start of Ukraine's counteroffensive to recapture the territories seized by Russia throughout the war.

The number of respondents in favor of holding peace talks with Ukraine is at the joint highest level with a poll conducted in late September 2022, which is when Putin announced a partial mobilization of the population to draft about 300,000 men to fight in Ukraine.

That move sparked a max exodus of Russians fleeing to bordering nations, while attacks on military enlistment offices ramped up across the country.

While the Russian public remains split on continuing with the war, mass mobilization would boost pacifist sentiment, the poll showed.

More than half of respondents (54 percent) would prefer for Russia to engage in peace negotiations if a second wave of mobilization is required to continue the "military operation."

Meanwhile, more than one-third (35 percent) are in favor of continuing hostilities if Putin were to announce a fresh wave of conscripted men to fight in Ukraine.

And more than a third of respondents (35 percent) also said the war needn't have started. That's the highest figure since the start of the war, when 28 percent answered in March 2022 that if they had the opportunity to return to the past and change the decision about starting the war, they would.

In December, a poll commissioned by the Kremlin "for internal use only," obtained by Meduza, a Russian-language independent news outlet, found that just 25 percent of Russians favored continuing the conflict.

Meduza said the survey—conducted by the Federal Protective Service, a Russian intelligence agency—found that 55 percent of Russians favored peace talks with Kyiv.

The Kremlin also commissioned polling in July 2022, Meduza reported, and the results suggest public opinion has shifted considerably in just a few months. In the earlier poll, 57 percent were in favor of continuing the war and 32 percent supported peace talks with Ukraine.

Meduza didn't specify how many people were questioned for the two Kremlin surveys or when the new study was conducted.

Newsweek has contacted Russia's foreign ministry for comment.

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