KIIS poll: Half of Ukrainians are not ready to give up territories under any conditions

Half of Ukrainians are not ready to give up Ukrainian territories in a war against Russia under any circumstances. At the same time, 39% are ready to make territorial concessions for the sake of peace.

This is evidenced by a survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), conducted on February 14 — March 4.

Respondents were asked the following question: “With which of these statements regarding possible compromises to achieve peace with Russia do you agree to a greater extent?” They chose one of two statements:

• "In order to achieve peace as soon as possible and preserve independence, Ukraine may give up some of its territories";
• "Under no circumstances should Ukraine give up any of its territories, even if this means the war will last longer and there will be threats to the preservation of its independence."

Thus, half of Ukrainians — 50% — believe that under no circumstances should Ukraine give up territories, even if this makes the war last longer (in December 2024, 51% of Ukrainians surveyed shared this opinion). At the same time, a minority believes that Ukraine can give up some territories in order to achieve peace as soon as possible — 39% (in December 2024 — 38%). The remaining 11% of respondents could not decide on their opinion.

In the regional dimension, the views of Ukrainians are quite similar, with only the east differing somewhat from the others. Thus, in the east, 42% are categorically against territorial concessions, while in other regions (in the west, center, and south) 50-51% answered so. At the same time, the share of those who are generally ready for certain concessions in the east is only slightly higher than in other regions — 42% versus 36-40%.

The vast majority of Ukrainians believe that Russia wants to either commit genocide against Ukrainians or destroy the Ukrainian nation and statehood. Significantly fewer respondents spoke about other (more limited) goals, although such opinions are also noticeably present among those surveyed. KIIS speaks of a dependence between the willingness to make concessions and how Ukrainians see Russiaʼs goal in this war.

So, the stronger the threat Ukrainians feel, the more they are against any concessions. If among those who feel an existential threat (Russia wants to commit physical genocide or destroy the nation), 57-58% are against any concessions, then the indicator decreases. That is, 20% believe that Russia does not seek to occupy more Ukrainian territories, while the share of those who believe that certain territorial concessions can be made increases from 28 to 78%.

On the question of Russia’s goal, some respondents chose the pro-Russian option, that Russia supposedly simply wants to “denazify and demilitarize” Ukraine. Among them, 44% are ready for concessions, and 48% are categorically against it. Perhaps the larger share of those who are against concessions (than one might expect) is related to the specifics of this view. For example, some people may believe that if they “denazify and demilitarize,” there will be no need to make territorial concessions.

• The survey was conducted by telephone interviews based on a random sample of mobile numbers. 1 029 respondents aged 18 and over living in all unoccupied regions of Ukraine were surveyed. The survey was not conducted among citizens who left abroad after February 24, 2022. Formally, under normal circumstances, the statistical error of a sample of 1,029 respondents does not exceed 4.1%.

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