Erosion of Clarity: Support for Ukraine and President Zelensky is waning worldwide, while there has been a slight increase in sympathy for Russia and Putin

According to a Pew Research Center survey conducted between January and May 2024, involving over 40,000 people from 35 countries, sympathies remain largely in favour of Volodymyr Zelensky, though to a lesser extent than before. Conversely, attitudes toward Vladimir Putin, after reaching a low point, have shown a slight increase in positive assessments. The survey did not include Ukraine and Russia, nor some countries that could be considered supporters of Russia, as well as the neighbouring Baltic states and Finland, where negative attitudes toward Russia are most pronounced. For residents of most surveyed countries, Zelensky and Putin are figures from television and YouTube, with opinions shaped primarily by the framing of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Overall, 40% of respondents across the surveyed countries (median value) believe that Zelensky is acting correctly on the international stage, while 46% are not confident in this. For Putin, these figures are 21% and 73%, respectively. Trust in Zelensky is highest in North America (56%), with 49% in Europe. Distrust of the Ukrainian president is most pronounced in the Middle East – 59% (survey conducted in Israel, Turkey, and Tunisia) – and in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. In India, equal numbers trust and distrust Zelensky, about 28%, with 45% not providing an answer, suggesting that Zelensky's image and arguments do not resonate with the Global South. Western support for Kyiv remains a key factor in the perception of the conflict in Ukraine and prevents Zelensky from leveraging an anti-colonial discourse towards Russia.

The highest approval of Zelensky's actions comes from residents of Northern Europe – Sweden (80%), the UK (72%), and the Netherlands (66%) – as well as Canada (64%), Japan (63%), and Australia (62%). Among other key allies of Ukraine, trust in its president decreases moving south: Germany (54%), the US, Poland, and Spain (48% each), France (43%), and Italy (39%).

While this represents high support for a foreign leader, it has declined compared to last year, including in several countries that support Ukraine: Poland (down by 22 percentage points – the largest drop), Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, and France (all down by 7 points). Support has also significantly decreased in South Korea (by 15 points) and South Africa (by 12 points). The least trust in Zelensky's ability to make decisions on the international stage is found in Hungary (83% distrust), Greece (72%), Tunisia (69%), Mexico (67%), Malaysia (61%), as well as Italy and Turkey (60% each).

In the US, Australia, Hungary, Germany, Canada, the Netherlands, and Turkey, supporters of left-wing views are more sympathetic to the Ukrainian president, while in Bangladesh, Brazil, Greece, Spain, Colombia, Mexico, and South Korea, right-wing voters have more confidence in Zelensky. This indicates the different contexts and frames in which the Russia-Ukraine military conflict is perceived globally. In general, even Europeans who sympathise with right-wing parties demonstrate varying attitudes toward Zelensky: in Central and Southeastern Europe, they tend to sympathise more with Russia and Putin, while in Western Europe, they favour the Ukrainian leader (→ Re:Russia: Right-wing West and Right-wing East). For example, supporters of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party trust the Ukrainian leader about half as much as those who do not support this party (31% vs. 61%). Conversely, supporters of the Spanish right-wing populist party Vox have more confidence in Zelensky than voters of other parties (62% vs. 44%). In Hungary, trust in Zelensky shows almost no difference by party preference (11% among Fidesz voters and 18% among other party voters), and in the UK, Zelensky is trusted by 66% of right-wing Reform UK party voters and 76% of other party voters.

Compared to last year's Pew Research Center study, where the median value of negative attitudes toward Russia among 24 countries was 82%, now only 65% hold a negative view, and 28% hold a positive view. Especially negative attitudes towards Russia are found where support for Zelensky is high – Australia, Canada, Israel, Japan, South Korea, and the US (more than three-quarters of respondents have a negative view). However, this negative attitude has notably decreased over the year in India (from 31% to 16%), South Africa (from 57% to 45%), South Korea (from 85% to 76%), Argentina (from 57% to 48%), and Mexico (from 54% to 48%). The share of those with a favourable view of Russia increased the most in Argentina (from 17% to 28%), as well as in Germany, Mexico, and South Korea (by 5 percentage points each). Malaysia is the only country where the majority of residents (57%) have a positive view of Russia. Around half of the residents of Bangladesh, Peru, Thailand, and Tunisia also hold a positive opinion of Russia.

The attitudes of the world's residents towards Putin are slightly improving. Positive assessments of the Russian president increased by 9 percentage points in Argentina and Germany since last year, with about 20% of respondents in these countries saying they trust him to some extent. This trend is also somewhat noticeable even in Western European countries: in the Netherlands, distrust of Putin decreased from 93% to 89% over the year, in Spain from 95% to 90%, and in the UK from 90% to 84%. If a year ago 87% of residents of 24 countries did not trust Putin's actions on the international stage, now 73% of residents of 35 countries do not trust him (21% trust him).

However, this may partly be due to the broader geographic scope of the survey. But only partly. The main reason is the fading shock. Initially, the world was stunned by Russia's unprovoked attack on its neighbour, but over two years, Moscow has succeeded in positioning the war as part of a prolonged global confrontation with the West. Attitudes toward this confrontation are more contradictory than toward the aggression of a 'big' neighbour against a 'small' one with the aim of seizing its territories.

The highest level of distrust toward Putin is demonstrated by Western countries (even in Hungary, it reaches 77%), except for Greece, where 34% trust the Russian president, and 65% do not. In the Asian region, a high level of distrust toward Putin is expressed only by Ukraine's allies (Australia, South Korea, and Japan – 89% and above). In India, however, the level of distrust toward Putin is only 21% (down from 30% a year ago). Malaysia and the Philippines remain the most pro-Putin and pro-Russian countries, where the majority of residents trust Putin (61% and 56%, respectively).

In Europe, Putin is most trusted by voters of far-right parties: in Hungary, they trust Putin 26 percentage points more often, and in Germany, 35 percentage points more often than left-wing voters. The share of right-wing populists who trust Putin is also growing in other European countries, including France, Hungary, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the UK. Right-wingers are inclined to trust Putin in Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Turkey, and the US. In Israel, however, 26% of left-wingers trust the Russian president, compared to only 6% of right-wingers. Japanese voters show a similar trend.

In most of the countries surveyed, young people generally have a more favourable view of Russia (Pew Research Center noted similar sentiments in their report last year). The gap in assessments of Russia between young and older people across all surveyed countries is at least 10 percentage points, with the largest disparity observed in Peru, where 63% of those under 35 have a positive opinion of Russia, compared to only 31% of those aged 50 and older. Hungary is the only country where the opposite situation is observed: 16% of the youth have a favourable view of Russia, compared to 27% of those over 50. This is an unpleasant trend that may indicate Russia is winning the battle for its image on social media.

Thus, the views of the Global South are becoming more pro-Putin, while Europe’s pro-Ukrainian orientation shows signs of erosion. The world is tired of being outraged by Putin and does not believe in the possibility of a just end to the war, which is increasingly being perceived as ‘normalised’. There is a kind of erosion of clarity in the perception of the conflict.

However, most countries in the Global South do not support Ukraine and approach the sanctions regime and trade with purely pragmatic considerations: they earn where they can and avoid actions that might harm their trade interests with the West. In this sense, gradual shifts in sentiment here do not directly affect the course of the conflict.

Over the past year, according to the Pew Research Center study, the issue of aid to Ukraine has become a topic of increasing polarisation, not only in the US, where 31% of respondents say Washington provides too much support to Kyiv while 24% consider it insufficient (→ Re:Russia: Vicious Cycle), but also in Poland, where almost an equal number of residents believe their country provides too much support to Ukraine (44%) and those who think the support is about right (45%). Polish aid to Ukraine is indeed one of the most significant, especially in terms of hosting Ukrainian refugees. However, the trend of reevaluating this aid in a country that seemed to be one of Kyiv's most consistent allies appears to be a worrying symptom (the question about support for Ukraine was asked in only a few countries during the survey process). Nonetheless, in the US, the share of those who consider the aid insufficient has increased from 18% in November 2023 to 24%.