“The enemy will go on trampling our land, and we canʼt fire back?”: Ukrainians want peace — but not at the price of territorial concessions

Russia has set a grim new record in its campaign against Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure. In July alone, 6,297 strike drones were launched at targets behind the front lines — almost 15 times the total recorded in July 2024. The Kremlin appears to be intent on terrorizing the population, exploiting delays in Western military aid and shortages of air defense systems.

Russian state media, along with several respected international outlets, cite opinion polls suggesting that Ukrainians are eager for a swift ceasefire. What is often left unsaid is that the same surveys show a clear majority of Ukrainians are unwilling to accept peace at the cost of territorial concessions. Only 15 percent of respondents say Ukraine should consider ceding areas not yet occupied by Russian forces — a condition still being demanded by Vladimir Putin.

Among those most opposed to such concessions are Ukraine’s soldiers themselves — the very people who every day risk their lives to defend the country.

• 1.Effect of cohesion
• 2.From intransigence to compromise
• 3.What really affects trust

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Effect of cohesion

One of the key indicators of public sentiment in Ukraine is trust in the president. Ukrainians’ trust in Volodymyr Zelensky began to decline just a few months after his election back in the spring of 2019. According to polls carried out by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), as of September 2019 a full 80% of voters trusted their new head of state. By the early winter of 2022, however, that figure had dropped to 37%. Only after Russian forces invaded did the population again unite around their president, boosting Zelensky’s rating to more than 90% by the summer of 2022.

By summer 2022, over 90% of Ukrainians approved of Zelensky’s actions

As the war dragged on, public support began to decline, but it remained far higher than it had been in the run-up to Russia’s full-scale invasion. In 2024, around 60% of respondents said they fully or mostly trusted Zelensky, and his statements about the potential end of the war — first voiced in 2023 and repeated in 2024 — were seen by voters not as unfulfilled promises, but as hopes that had not yet materialized. Zelensky himself has always spoken cautiously about the prospects for victory, never giving specific timelines for the war’s end.

From intransigence to compromise

Over time, Ukraine’s president has shown increasing willingness to compromise. In the fall of 2022, when Putin announced the annexation of four Ukrainian regions, Zelensky signed a decree banning negotiations with him. By 2024, however, Zelensky was proposing a referendum on the conditions for such negotiations and the concessions — primarily territorial — that Ukraine might consider in order to achieve peace at the negotiating table.

The evolution of the Ukrainian president’s stance on a possible agreement did not happen in isolation, but under public pressure. In 2022, after successful Ukrainian counteroffensives in the Kharkiv and Kherson regions, Kyiv’s forces were confident of a swift victory and saw no need to make concessions to Russia. At that time, only 10% of voters supported the idea of settling the conflict diplomatically.

Ukrainian Armed Forces in Izyum, liberated during the 2022 counteroffensive

But by spring 2024, as it became clear the war would not end in a Ukrainian victory anytime soon, support for territorial concessions rose to 33%, then reached 50% by early 2025 before declining again. Currently, the majority of Ukrainians are firmly opposed to any territorial concessions, let alone to ceding areas not yet occupied by Russian forces. Only 15% are willing to so much as consider such measures.

The staunchest opponents of territorial concessions can be found in the military. Thousands of people from occupied regions now serve in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and many of them were motivated to enlist because of a desire to return home. While it is impossible to find statistical data covering only military personnel (at least publicly), numerous press reports and personal interactions with soldiers and officers confirm that despite fatigue and the dangers of wartime service, the overwhelming majority see no point in ending combat operations before the entire constitutional territory of the country is liberated.

The staunchest opponents of territorial concessions are the military

“The war will not end while our territories remain under occupation. Halting combat would play into the enemy’s hands, giving them a chance to prepare new attacks and consolidate control over captured areas. We cannot stop. We cannot leave the war for our children and grandchildren. We must finish it ourselves,” says a soldier from a brigade fighting in the Zaporizhzhia direction.

A soldier serving in the Sumy region shares the same sentiment: “War is terrifying, but a peace concluded before Ukraine returns to its legal borders is even scarier. At least now everything is clear: here is the enemy, and we must kill them or drive them out. But what would a peace look like in which the enemy remains the same, continues to trample our land, but we are not allowed to fire back? I don’t know. I think few would like that kind of peace.”

For the military, any decision to exchange regions — even without formally recognizing them as Russian territory — would be seen as a betrayal by the Ukrainian authorities. Kyiv’s desire to avoid an open conflict with their own Armed Forces seems to have been a major factor behind the idea of holding a referendum on concessions, as such a mechanism would allow the responsibility for potential concessions to be shared with the voters.

The desire to avoid conflict with their own Armed Forces was a key factor behind the idea of holding a referendum on concessions

Russian propaganda is actively seeking to turn Ukrainians against one another, and also against the Zelensky government. Moscow’s strikes on civilian infrastructure are being used for the same purpose — to instill fear in society, to create divisions between those at the front and those in the rear, and, ultimately to provoke mass demonstrations demanding “peace at any cost.” And yet over three and a half years of full-scale war, Ukrainians have taken to the streets in mass protests only once, and that had nothing to do with Russian provocations.

What really affects trust

In July, the Ukrainian Office of the President attempted to undermine the independence of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO), which had begun investigating figures close to the country’s top officials. The move significantly damaged Zelensky’s ratings. In July, for the first time since the early winter, the share of respondents expressing distrust in the president exceeded 30%, and a wave of protests against the authorities swept across the country. Demonstrators’ demand to preserve the autonomy of Ukraine’s main anti-corruption bodies was supported by the European Union and the United States, forcing the government to abandon its plans to subordinate the institutions. In the end, that attempt came at a heavy political cost for the president.

The dynamics of responses to questions about trust in Zelensky are revealing. The graph shows a sharp rise in distrust at the start of 2024, followed by an almost record increase in trust a year later. The first peak coincides with news of a conflict between Zelensky and Valerii Zaluzhnyi, who at the time served as commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Zaluzhnyi has been the undisputed leader of Ukrainians’ sympathy ratings since the beginning of the full-scale war, and any public spat with him has had a highly negative impact on his opponents.

The second peak in trust occurred after Donald Trump came to power in the United States and attempted to pressure Ukraine into giving up its territories. Against the backdrop of Trump’s provocative statements and the suspension of U.S. military aid he initiated, Zelensky’s rating rose noticeably.

It can be assumed that without the “Trump factor,” the share of those who distrust the Ukrainian president would have hovered around 30%, with 55–60% expressing trust. Yet this “factor” is a recurring one. The discussion over territorial concessions, reignited after Putin’s meeting with Trump in Alaska and Zelensky’s talks with European leaders and the U.S. president in Washington, is perceived by Ukrainian society as a betrayal by the Americans — in other words, as a significant crisis. In times of crisis, society tends to rally around its leader, meaning that another rise in Zelensky’s ratings can be expected, provided he remains sufficiently firm.