Despite growing support for ceding land to end war, majority of Ukrainians remain opposed

Over half of Ukrainians continue to oppose making any territorial concessions to Russia, despite a growing number saying they were in favour of ceding some land to achieve peace, according to a poll published on Tuesday by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS).

The survey, carried out in May and taken by over 1,000 members of the public, found that over half of Ukrainians (55%) said they remained firmly opposed to making any territorial concessions to Russia. However, the number of Ukrainians who said they were willing to sacrifice some Ukrainian territory to achieve peace rose significantly from 19% at the end of 2023, to 32% in May, the institute said.

KIIS’s executive director Anton Hrushetskyi noted that while the increase may appear “alarming”, differing opinions were “a normal situation for democratic societies”. The fact that most Ukrainians continued to reject “peace on any terms” despite the challenges being faced by the country meant that the glass was “half full”, he added, and warned against “overdramatising” the poll results.

Of those willing to make concessions to Russia, 46% said they thought Russia’s ultimate goal was genocide or the destruction of Ukrainian identity. That figure jumped to 68% among those resolutely against handing over any land to Russia, the institute noted.

Only 5% of those who said they would be willing to make territorial concessions also said they believed pro-Russian narratives about the importance of “denazifying and demilitarising” Ukraine, however.

On 16 July, a survey published by Ukrainian independent media outlet ZN.UA found that almost half of Ukrainian civilians were in favour of beginning peace talks with Russia. A similar survey conducted in Russia in early July showed that 58% of Russians favoured starting peace talks with Ukraine, the highest figure since polling on the issue began.

While many Ukrainians have remained staunchly opposed to peace negotiations since the beginning of the war, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has recently opened the door to direct talks with Moscow, offering to invite Russia to the next Ukraine Peace Summit planned for November, a marked shift from last month’s peace summit in Switzerland, to which Russia was not invited.

Russia has already ruled out its participation in the November summit, however, accusing its organisers of being unwilling to contemplate “other initiatives to resolve the Ukrainian crisis”, presumably a reference to Vladimir Putin’s preconditions for peace negotiations, which include demands that Ukraine accept the accession of five of its regions to Russia.