Doves at heart: Sociologists discover most Russians want a ceasefire
A Gallup Institute poll conducted in Ukraine in August and October 2024 showed — for the first time since the full-scale invasion began — that most respondents were ready for a ceasefire. 52% favored a stop to the fighting “as soon as possible,” versus 38% who called for continuing the war until complete victory. This does not mean that Ukrainian society — not even 52% of it — is ready for a ceasefire at any price. Neither is President Volodymyr Zelensky, as outright capitulation would only strengthen the position of his political opponents. Still, Ukrainians on the whole are increasingly open to making some concessions that would have been unacceptable to them at earlier stages of the conflict — provided that those concessions actually prove capable of bringing an end to the death and destruction.
Putin, unlike Zelensky, has all but annihilated his domestic political opposition and therefore heeds public opinion considerably less faithfully than his Ukrainian counterpart must. Yet the public attitude inside Russia does still matter to some extent — otherwise, Russia's second wave of mobilization might have already taken place, and YouTube would have been blocked much sooner. What follows is an attempt to summarize what we know at this point about the prevalent attitude toward potential peace talks in Russian society. While opinion polls regularly show dizzying numbers of support for the war in Ukraine — an average of 75% versus 18% against — a deeper examination results in a more nuanced picture of what Russians really want.
Language matters
The question “How many Russians endorse the war?” raises another question: can public opinion polls be trusted under a military dictatorship? And if so, how should they be interpreted?
Wording is critical. Even the small percentage of respondents who agreed to participate in a poll would have provided a drastically different answer had the choice before them been presented in a slightly different manner.
As Elena Koneva, the founder of the ExtremeScan agency, and Kirill Rogov, director of the Re: Russia project, note, Levada Center surveys, which present respondents with a scale of available options, create incentives to express an opinion, even if respondents struggle to articulate that opinion for themselves. When merged, the categories “Definitely yes” and “Probably yes” as answers to the question about support for the war create an illusion of unequivocal approval. However, if the question has fewer response options, and if these options include phrases like “I hesitate to answer” and “I don't want to answer,” then the level of declared support for the war drops to 40%, as shown by Fry, Hale, Reuter, and Rosenfeld.
Moreover, even unambiguously affirmative answers do not necessarily indicate support for military aggression as such. As we learned from a pre-war study by Sam Greene of King's College London and Graeme Robertson of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, support for Putin and his initiatives represents a variant of the “patriotic, communitarian, normal position” for many Russians. Maintaining this stance is perceived as important for those who want to get on well with coworkers, family, and friends. Many people prefer to be on the same page with their social circle, even if that page is riddled with propaganda.
This hypothesis is confirmed by an ethnographic study from the Public Sociology Lab (P.S. Lab), conducted in the fall of 2023 in three Russian regions: Buryatia, Krasnodar Krai, and Sverdlovsk Region. The study revealed that a large proportion of “war supporters” are in fact largely apolitical Russians who live their private lives, stay out of politics, and perceive support for the war in Ukraine as the “social norm”.
No one is willing to fight
Among the modest percentage of Russians who agree to talk to sociologists, only 35% are in favor of continuing military action, but that appears to be an exaggerated figure as well. In response to a September poll from the Levada Center asking whether they would support Putin's decision to end the war “this week,” 72% of respondents said yes and only 20% said no — and this result represents percentages among voluntary respondents, not the general population.
Finding an end to the war appears to be among the Russians' top priorities. According to the Levada Center, the issue of resolving the “special military operation” ranked the highest among questions that willing respondents would have addressed to Vladimir Putin at his Q&A sessions both in 2023 and 2024.
Other poll-based surveys also suggest that Russian society has entered a state of war fatigue. Thus, a joint September 2024 poll by Khroniki and ExtremeScan showed a record-high percentage of Russians who would support withdrawing troops and holding peace talks even without achieving the stated goals of the “special military operation.” A Russian Field poll conducted this past November also showed that a majority are in favor of peace talks and only 13% would be dissatisfied if Putin were to sign a peace agreement.