Support among Ukrainians for continuing the fight against Russia has slumped, according to polling that shows most want to end the war through negotiations.
The Gallup survey found that most Ukrainians backed ending the war with Russia through negotiations, as support for Kyiv fighting on until victory has dropped sharply since the early days of the conflict.
This is a reversal from 2022, the year the war started, when most favored Ukraine fighting until victory, and only a fifth wanted a negotiated end as soon as possible.
Gallup also found that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had an approval rating of 67 percent, up seven percentage points from 2024.
Benedict Vigers, a senior global news writer at Gallup, told Newsweek that since 2023, Gallup has observed “meaningful shifts in how Ukrainians feel about the war with Russia.”
Newsweek reached out to the Ukrainian presidential office for comment.
Why It Matters
Polling, which shows dwindling support among Ukrainians for fighting on and greater support for talks, adds to the stakes in Friday’s summit in Alaska between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump, from which Zelensky will be absent.
What To Know
Gallup has polled Ukrainians four times since the start of the full-scale invasion launched in February 2022. Its latest survey of 1,000 people was conducted between July 1 and July 14, 2025, with a margin of error of between 3.6 and 4.3 percentage points.
Three and a half years into the war, Gallup found that 69 percent of Ukrainians backed a negotiated end to the war as soon as possible.
Vigers told Newsweek the shift in public opinion has been significant, and that this was a 17-percentage-point increase since 2024, when 52 percent favored negotiated peace.
In 2022, only 22 percent of Ukrainians favored a negotiated end to the war, and 73 percent favored Ukraine fighting until victory.
This dwindling of support for continued fighting was seen across all age groups, regions and demographics, although most doubt that the fighting will end soon.
One quarter believed active fighting would come to an end within the next year, although only 5 percent saw it as “very likely.” Over two-thirds (68 percent) said it was unlikely that active fighting would come to an end in the next year.
Gallup polling also put Zelensky’s approval rating at 67 percent, which, while lower than the 84 percent he had at the start of the war, was higher than the 60 percent of last year and much higher than what his predecessor, Petro Poroshenko, received.
Friday’s summit in Alaska will take place as fighting remains tense along the frontline and Moscow continues to launch drones and missiles targeting Ukrainian infrastructure.
A sticking point in negotiations is whether a deal involves swapping land for a ceasefire, which Zelensky has said is counter to Ukraine’s constitution and would hand Putin the regions that Russian forces only partially control.
Ukrainian geopolitical analyst Viktor Kovalenko told Newsweek that leaving some eastern territories under Russian control without recognition doesn’t clash with Ukraine’s Constitution nor Zelensky’s political stance, allowing him to avoid domestic protests.
Kovalenko said Trump helped solve the dispute between Azerbaijan and Armenia last week by excluding the Azerbaijani occupation of the Nagorno-Karabakh province from the deal, and there could be a similar deal over Ukraine.
“No one can be sure that Washington would formally recognize Crimea, Donbas, and Luhansk as a part of Russia,” Kovalenko said.
But Yuriy Boyechko, CEO of Hope for Ukraine, a charity that helps frontline communities in the war-torn country, told Newsweek that Trump agreeing to meet with Putin without any preconditions plays directly into Russia’s hands.
Putin will end his diplomatic isolation by meeting with the president of the world’s largest democracy, while there has been no mention of secondary sanctions, which Trump had threatened would be imposed from last Friday, Boyechko said.
He predicted that this Friday’s meeting between Trump and Putin would not bring a ceasefire to Ukraine, even temporarily.
Zelensky said Ukrainian intelligence showed Russia is relocating troops in different parts of the front, which shows Putin is not ready for peace and that the White House has no real plan or strategy for this important meeting, Boyechko said.
What People Are Saying
Benedict Vigers, senior global news writer at Gallup, told Newsweek:“Since 2023, Gallup has observed meaningful shifts in how Ukrainians feel about the war with Russia…which saw ‘a nearly complete reversal in public opinion.’”
Viktor Kovalenko, producer of Ukraine Decoded Substack: “I expect that Putin might also abandon some key, but not all, of his maximalist demands to avoid the collapse of Moscow’s BRICS economic alliance, which is existentially threatened by Washington’s sanctions on India and Brazil.”
Yuriy Boyechko, CEO of Hope for Ukraine: “By not implementing sanctions on August 8, President Trump showed serious weakness, and Putin will certainly exploit that weakness during Friday’s meeting.”
What Happens Next
In statements issued so far this week, Ukraine’s European allies have publicly said that changing borders by force was not acceptable and emphasized that Kyiv must be part of any peace deal, with high-stakes diplomacy likely to continue before Friday’s summit.
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