Scientists at the Kiev International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) have been conducting regular surveys since May 2022 on the readiness of Ukrainians to make territorial concessions to Russia in order to end the war faster. . The agency’s latest research shows a sudden shift in the views of some parts of society.
See: Trapped Russians. Ukrainian military offensive weakens control over Crimea
From May to October last year, the percentage of respondents who said they would accept the option of transferring part of their land to the Kremlin remained stable at around 32%. However, in a survey conducted between December 2 and 17, 38% of respondents expressed a willingness to make concessions on territory.
KIIS also shows that the proportion of Ukrainians who strongly oppose the possibility of ceding land to Russia has also decreased. At the beginning of October, it was 58% of respondents, but in the latest survey it is already 51%.
Mobilization in Ukraine. “Society resisted.”
The institute also recalled studies conducted between May 2022 and the same month of the following year. At the time, around 8-10 percent of respondents were willing to make territorial concessions, while 82-87 percent were vehemently opposed to it.
Appearing on Friday’s “Jankowski’s Views,” Andrzej Womanowski, an expert on Eastern affairs and a longtime correspondent for Polish media in Kiev and Moscow, said that Ukraine and Russia are currently struggling. He acknowledged that he faces a similar problem to that of society’s negativity. to mobilize militarily.
– Look at this Ukrainian corps, which we could not form. There were supposed to be thousands of Ukrainians, but there were only 150 or 200. Those who have gone abroad do not want to fight. The same is true in Ukraine (…). He explained that when mobilization began in Ukraine, society began to resist.
Have Ukrainians lost their will to fight? “Clear fatigue indicator”
Mr. Womanovsky mentioned numerous cases of Ukrainians fleeing and deserting the country. As he said, many conscripts into the armed forces of defending countries “prefer to drown in the rivers on the Romanian border” just to get out of the country.
– At the same time, the old army at the front line has a huge grudge against Zelensky that all this is “too late and too little,” and the new army that has been assembled simply does not want to go to the front. This is a clear sign of fatigue, despondency and reluctance to fight, he explained in an interview with Grzegorz Jankowski.
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The expert also said that commanders in the old Ukrainian army complained that young recruits would rather run away from the trenches than fight in them. However, in his opinion, the true reluctance of some Ukrainians towards Zelensky is hidden in sociological studies.
– They are a very disciplined people, and if they choose a commander, they will follow him for a long time. They have a very Cossack mentality, so once we choose a hetman, we follow him. And if he lost, he claimed, to put it brutally short, we would hang him.
The eyes of the world are on Donald Trump. What will happen in the meeting with President Putin?
The change in the mood of Ukrainians surveyed in the KIIS poll may also be related to Donald Trump’s victory. The next president of the United States has long announced that once he returns to the White House, he will end wars in one day with a phone call. Republicans argued that the conflict should end as soon as possible.
The following people commented on the voluntary meeting between President Putin and President Trump regarding the cessation of fighting and the start of peace negotiations. Michael McFaul, former U.S. Ambassador to Russia. He expressed the belief that the next president could force the Kremlin dictator to negotiate only if the Russian military is unable to continue offensive operations.
-Putin will only engage in serious negotiations when Russian forces are unable to occupy any more Ukrainian territory, or, even better, when Russian soldiers begin to lose ground, which is unlikely. emphasized.
Another challenge will be convincing Ukraine’s president to end military action, McFaul said. President Zelenskiy will have to make “a bitter concession to allow vast areas of his country to remain under Russian occupation.”
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