Different Forms of ‘Unity’: The contrasting nature of societal mobilisation in Ukraine and Russia

The mobilisation of society in the face of external aggression tends to lead to a rise in trust towards governmental and public institutions, as well as interpersonal trust.

However, a protracted conflict brings about the opposite effect: the 'rally round the flag' sentiment fades, and differing experiences of the war give rise to distinct societal groups. Among those who have been more severely affected by the hostilities, interpersonal trust declines, whereas residents of relatively safer regions tend to maintain their previous levels of trust. These are the conclusions drawn by sociologists studying public opinion in Ukraine.

However, those who express trust in national institutions and the government, and who support the restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, tend to exhibit higher levels of altruism. Trust in state and public institutions rose sharply in Ukraine during the first year of the war, but the 'rally round the flag' effect had largely dissipated by 2024. Ukrainians generally returned to the pre-war democratic norm of holding government institutions to critical scrutiny.

However, institutions and groups directly linked to the war effort – the Armed Forces, the Security Service, and volunteers – continue to enjoy exceptionally high levels of trust. Trust in President Zelensky, which declined in 2024, has once again risen significantly, due to his efforts to defend Ukrainian interests in Washington and in peace negotiations. Thus, Ukrainian society has undergone a form of division into those who support the war and those who do not.

The 'rally round the flag' phenomenon in Russian public opinion has manifested in a markedly different way. Trust in all state and public institutions surged in 2022, yet there has been virtually no return to normal levels since then. Paradoxically, the only institution to have experienced a consistent decline in trust after an initial rise is the army.

Furthermore, unlike in Ukraine, Russia saw a decline in interpersonal trust during 2022–2023, despite increased trust in public institutions. Russian citizens became more suspicious and secretive, even within close social circles. This outcome suggests that the mobilisation of Russian society, unlike the Ukrainian case, has taken on a repressive, anti-democratic character.

War and trust

The war has generally led to a decline in interpersonal trust in Ukraine. This decline is more pronounced among those who were most affected by the conflict, while those who felt relatively safe tended to retain previous levels of trust. These findings are supported by research conducted by Larysa Tamilina, a professor at the Kyiv School of Economics, based on a survey carried out in November 2024. Broadly speaking, these results align with comparative studies indicating that armed conflicts deepen group divisions within society, leading to increased trust within one's own group (though not always) and reducing it towards 'outsiders'; as a result, generalised trust tends to fall. In regions directly impacted by violence, individuals who perceive themselves as victims of the conflict show lower levels of trust in others. Over time, war creates differing experiences and fragments society into groups defined by the degree of their exposure to it, between which mutual trust can erode. This mechanism contributes to the demobilisation of society in the context of a prolonged conflict.

One particularly interesting finding of the study is that trust in state institutions plays a key role in overcoming the psychological effects of war: those who trust these institutions tend to cope better with the consequences. A firm belief in the necessity of restoring Ukraine’s territorial integrity also correlates with increased altruism: such individuals are more likely to help others during wartime. In other words, the mobilisation effect, or 'rally round the flag', observed in societies facing external threats helps to maintain interpersonal trust. Indeed, in the first year of the war, when the 'rally' effect was particularly strong in Ukraine, people became more trusting of others in their local communities, according to data from the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS): in December 2022, this figure rose to 71%, compared with 63% the previous year.

As we have previously written, the 'rally round the flag' effect was particularly strong in the early stages following the Russian invasion, but as the conflict dragged on, the effect began to wane (→ Re:Russia: After The Rally). According to data from the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), on the eve of the invasion, 37% of Ukrainians trusted Volodymyr Zelensky, whereas by May 2022 that figure had risen to 90%. However, by May 2024, this effect had largely run its course, and by December 2024, the Ukrainian president’s trust rating had fallen to 52%. Nevertheless, a sharp shift in US policy following Donald Trump’s return to the White House, and his attacks on Zelensky and Ukraine, led to a wave of 'secondary' mobilisation around the Ukrainian leader. His ratings soared after an appalling incident in the White House Oval Office (rising to 67%), and by May they had climbed to 74%. Ukrainians appreciated how, under difficult circumstances, Zelensky managed to regain diplomatic initiative and avoided becoming a pawn in the hands of the Trump administration.

‘War’ and ‘not war’: three patterns in Ukrainian public opinion

The classic 'rally round the flag' effect can also be observed in Ukrainian society’s attitude towards other state and public institutions. The spike in trust towards these bodies proved even more short-lived. For example, in pre-war December 2021, only 11% of Ukrainians trusted the Verkhovna Rada.

A year later, for the first time, and only briefly, trust exceeded distrust (35% versus 34%), but by December 2023, the rally effect had dissipated, and the figures reverted to 15% trust versus 61% distrust, according to data from the KIIS. In December 2021, only 14% of Ukrainians trusted the government; a year later, that number rose to 52%, but by December 2023 had fallen again to 26%. A similar early spike in trust followed by decline by 2024 can be seen in public attitudes towards the national police, media, and several other institutions.

KIIS sociologists have voiced concerns that high levels of distrust towards state institutions could undermine the moral and psychological readiness to continue resisting the aggressor. However, criticism of most government bodies does not diminish Ukrainians’ commitment to democracy or their belief in Ukraine as an independent state. Nor does it undermine the democratic legitimacy of the authorities, concludes Tamilina in another study. Instead, the high levels of scrutiny directed at state institutions appear to function as a kind of civic norm.

This is supported by the fact that there are institutions and institutional groups whose trust levels, having surged at the outset of the full-scale invasion, have remained extremely high. These are bodies directly associated with the war effort, particularly the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the Security Service of Ukraine. Trust in the Armed Forces was already high before the war (in December 2021, 72% of Ukrainians expressed confidence in the military), and following the start of the full-scale invasion, this figure rose to 90% or more and has remained at that level. Trust in the SBU stood at 29% in December 2021, rose to 63% by December 2022, and then dipped only slightly in subsequent surveys: 58% in December 2023 and 54% in December 2024. Finally, one more group that enjoys unwavering trust is volunteers. In the first year of the war, trust in them rose from 68% to 84%, and has remained virtually unchanged: 84% in December 2023 and 81% in December 2024.

Dynamics of trust in public institutions in Ukraine, 2021–2024, % of those surveyed who ‘trust’

As we can see, three distinct patterns emerge in Ukrainian public opinion. The first is the classic 'rally round the flag', a sudden surge in trust towards nearly all institutions following the invasion. As with any rally effect, it was relatively short-lived, lasting around a year and a half, after which trust in most institutions returned almost to pre-war levels. The second pattern concerns institutions directly involved in or associated with the military conflict: trust in them rose and has remained consistently high. The third relates to attitudes towards Zelensky, which, although lower than the 2022 peak, have remained relatively high; in any case, higher than in the pre-war period.

Thus, during the first year of the war, we see a clear 'rally round the flag' phase, but as the conflict becomes prolonged, public opinion begins to separate the 'war' from the 'non-war'. In the 'war zone', a high level of public mobilisation persists, while attitudes towards other institutions and authorities revert to a civic-democratic, critical pattern. Zelensky finds himself straddling these two realities, acting both as a symbol of national mobilisation in the face of aggression and as the head of state institutions, held accountable for their dysfunctions and subject to public criticism.

Military-repressive (dis)trust

Russian surveys also demonstrate a 'rally round the flag' effect, though the picture is markedly different. It is often claimed that trust in President Putin increased after the outbreak of war, but this is an imprecise characterisation. In fact, trust rose across all state and public institutions (19 in total, according to the Levada Centre’s polling panel).

In 2021, trust in these institutions had been declining in parallel, reaching relatively low levels for a non-democratic system like Russia’s, i.e. a context in which authoritarian bias, fuelled by control over the main media channels, leads to the systematic 'inflation of support'. After the war began, we see a uniform, across-the-board spike in trust. The sharpest increases were observed in trust towards the president, the government, both chambers of parliament, the military, and security services (a rise of 16–27 percentage points). More modest increases were seen in trust towards the media, the prosecutor’s office and judiciary, large and small businesses, and banks (5–10 percentage points). In between these extremes were political parties, regional and local authorities, the police, the church, and trade unions (11–15 percentage points).

Dynamics of trust in public institutions in Russia, 2020–2024, % of those surveyed who ‘trust’

What distinguishes the Russian data from the Ukrainian is the absence of a fading mobilisation effect, which is typically observed in a 'rally round the flag' scenario. Trust in state and public institutions (including, curiously, trade unions, which are virtually non-existent in Russia as a meaningful entity) rose and then plateaued at new levels. Even more striking is the fact that the only institution to show a decline in trust after the initial surge is the army. This situation is the direct opposite of Ukraine’s. The key institution bearing responsibility in the context of military conflict is losing public trust, and the reasons for this are obvious. The Russian army has achieved few visible successes, yet this does not appear to affect trust in the commander-in-chief.

Another surprising effect is that, whereas in Ukraine the 'rally' effect – the initial rise in institutional trust at the start of the war – was accompanied by a rise in interpersonal trust, in Russia it has been accompanied by a decline. According to the Levada Centre, interpersonal trust in Russia experienced a rather unexplained drop in 2018. The proportion of those who believed that people can 'almost always' or 'generally' be trusted averaged 32% from 2013 to 2017; from 2018 to 2020, it fell to 17%. Meanwhile, the share of those who believed that people can almost never be trusted rose from 21% in the earlier period to between 25% and 30% in the latter. In April 2022, Russia recorded an all-time high in interpersonal distrust: the first group (those who trust) dropped to 14%, while the second group (those who distrust) surged to 36%. In 2023–2024, the figures reverted to the low levels seen in 2018–2020.

Interpersonal trust: ‘Would you say that people can be trusted or that one can never be too cautious when dealing with others?’, 2014–2024, % of those surveyed

A FOM survey conducted in July 2023 showed that 54% of respondents believed that in recent years people had become less trusting of one another, while only 7% thought trust had increased. Compared with 2019, the proportion of those who initially approach a new acquaintance with trust fell from 44% to 36%, a drop of 8 percentage points. Conversely, the share of those who are initially distrustful rose by 6 percentage points (from 48% to 54%). Even trust towards close circles declined during this period: the number of people who believed that most individuals in their immediate environment could be trusted fell by 5 percentage points (from 68% to 63%), with the same increase seen in those giving the opposite response. It is also noteworthy that in 2024, 83% of respondents named 'criticising the authorities in conversation with a stranger' as a situation they found unacceptable.

Thus, Russian wartime surveys reveal, on the one hand, a non-selective and prolonged rise in trust toward all institutions, and on the other, a marked decline in interpersonal trust. This calls into question whether we are truly witnessing a 'rally round the flag' effect in the classical sense, and instead suggests that the increase in institutional trust may be linked to tightening censorship and the intensification of propaganda, as well as possible 'spiral of silence' effects, amid a surge in repression and the aggressive promotion of a 'fortress under siege' narrative. In such a setting, dissent is framed as the behaviour of internal enemies, meaning those critical of the war and the authorities may increasingly avoid expressing their views, and perhaps even refraining from taking part in surveys altogether.