Most European countries are still standing firmly by Ukraine as it continues its fight against invading Russian troops, a new wide-ranging poll suggested – but the majority of people polled in three countries think it’s a “bad idea” to further incrase help given to the war-torn nation to help its efforts against Vladimir Putin.
In Estonia, one of the NATO countries already fighting a hybrid war against Russia, 38 percent of the respondents to this survey said to think Ukraine would win the war outright.
Across Europe, many of those polled said to be in favour of Western allies increasing the supply of weapons and ammunition to Ukraine to support its defence efforts.
The majority of the people polled in the three nations in southern Europe, however, were opposed to this scenario, the survey found.
According to the poll, 63 percent of those surveyed in Bulgaria, 54 percent in Greece and 53 percent in Italy thought it would be a “bad idea” to ramp up military aid to Ukraine.
Conversely, the majority of people polled in the UK, 59 percent, were said to consider it a “good idea” to increase the support for Ukraine, the survey found.
The staunch support provided by Britain to Kyiv since the onset of the conflict has been noticed by people surveyed in Ukraine, with 88 percent of them saying Britain has been “very or mostly reliable” with its help. Lithuania came in second in this ranking, with 77 percent.
Most Europeans, and particularly those surveyed in Italy, Greece, Spain and Switzerland, are also unprepared to spend more on defence despite the ongoing war in eastern Europe, the poll suggested.
The study carried out by the European Council of Foreign Relations (ECFR) saw 19,566 people being interviewed by pollsters Datapraxis with YouGov, Norstat, Alpha Research, and Rating Group across 15 nations.
All the countries considered for this study titled “The meaning of sovereignty: Ukrainian and European views of Russia’s war on Ukraine” – Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Italy, Poland, Portugal, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and Ukraine – are in the European continent, where the impact of the unlawful invasion started by Russia two and a half years ago is being felt the most.
This multi-country survey, authored by political scientists Ivan Krastev and Mark Leonard, also showed a division within Europe over opinions on how the war in Ukraine will end, with many Europeans believing the war will end in a negotiated settlement rather than a victory struck on the battlefield by Kyiv.
One area in which the survey found widespread agreement among those polled was opposition to sending troops to Ukraine. The presence of NATO combat boots on the Ukrainian battlefield has been often described as a red line by the Kremlin, which has warned it could spark a direct conflict with the Western military alliance.