With the Russian army relentlessly seizing more territory while mounting casualties, power outages, and aggressive conscription tactics make life miserable for everyone, half of Ukrainians have had enough: They now want their government to pursue a deal that ends the war as soon as possible.
According to the latest Gallup polls, 52% of Ukrainians agreed with the statement "Ukraine should seek to negotiate an ending to the war as soon as possible." That's substantially more than the 38% who said the country should "continue fighting until it wins the war." These are huge shifts in sentiment from polls taken in 2022. Then, 73% of Ukrainians were gung-ho about fighting to victory, while only 22% were eager for a speedy, negotiated end to the conflict.
Of those who want a negotiated end to the war, 52% say Ukraine should be willing to make territorial concessions; 38% disagreed. Meanwhile, among the "keep-fighting" crowd, the definition of victory is starting to bend to realities on the ground. Last year, 93% of them defined victory as Ukraine regaining all territory, even Crimea. That's now dropped to 81%.
In a sign that fewer Ukrainians view the United States government as part of the solution, more Ukrainians think the European Union and the United Kingdom should play "a significant role" in peace negotiations than the United States. The poll was taken in October; at the time, more Ukrainians wanted a potential Kamala Harris administration to play a significant role than a Donald Trump one.
The important new read on sentiment inside Ukraine comes days after President Biden gave the green light for a major escalation of the war, by authorizing Ukraine to use the long-range, US-made MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System to strike deeper into Russian territory. Ukraine quickly put its new permission to work, striking a Russian military facility near the city of Karachev in the Bryansk region -- about 71 miles from the Ukraine border.
Biden's policy change prompted Russian President Vladimir Putin to threaten a "symmetrical" response, enabling strikes against the United States by third parties:
“If someone considers it possible to supply such weapons to a combat zone to strike our territory and create problems for us, then why do we not have the right to supply our weapons of the same class to those regions of the world from which the strikes will be carried out on sensitive objects of those countries that do this in relation to Russia? That is, the answer may be symmetrical. We will think about it.”
On Tuesday, Putin signed off on an update to Russia's nuclear weapons policy. Under the revised doctrine, a conventional attack on Russia that is enabled by a nuclear power will be considered a joint attack by the two actors. More chillingly, Russia will now consider nuclear retaliation for conventional attacks by a nuclear power.
Since Ukraine is constantly -- if dubiously -- touted as an exemplary democracy, let's hope its government yields to its citizens' growing desire for peace before it's too late for all of us.
