The Challenges of Wartime Polling in Ukraine
At the core of every conflict lies a paradox: political elites claim to be acting on behalf of the people, but violence means that measuring public opinion is incredibly challenging. This is evident today in Ukraine. Given the challenges posed by Russia’s war in Ukraine, how reliable are wartime polls?
In all wars, politicians and military leaders– be they formal state militaries or fragmented insurgent networks–claim to be acting on behalf of their supporters. They justify their acts, legitimize their use of violence, and pursue wartime objectives by leaning heavily on the will of their constituents. Today, this is clearly visible in war-ravaged Ukraine.
While there are fundamental differences between the political regimes in Ukraine and Russia, political elites on both sides of this war claim to be pursuing goals that align with the will of the Ukrainian people. Even Russian President Vladimir Putin, in what is now his infamous predawn speech of 21 February 2022, claimed that it was the “aspirations, the feelings, and pain” of people in Ukraine that led his state to recognize the independence of the so-called People’s Republics in the Donbas.
This poses an important challenge for the international community, policymakers, and practitioners. How can we know what the Ukrainian people really want? How reliable are efforts to collect public opinion data during conflict? How can we, as onlookers, reconcile conflicting claims?
The preferences of the Ukrainian people are likely to come into sharper focus over the next months and years as they and their Western backers begin to show signs of wartime fatigue. While wartime polls continue to show high levels of support for Ukraine’s continued resistance to Russian aggression, recent polls suggest that support is decreasing. This is to be expected as the human costs of the war increase every day.