KIIS survey: 85% of Ukrainians have negative attitude towards Russians still living in Russia

According to a new survey, 91% of Ukrainians currently have a negative attitude towards Russia, and 85% – towards Russians living in the Russian Federation.

Source: a survey conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) from 2 to 14 September 2025

Details: Sociologists note that in 2024, attitudes towards Russia and Russians were almost identical – 93% and 3% respectively – meaning there has been no significant change within the margin of error.

The same pattern has persisted since Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022: a consistently negative attitude towards both Russia and its citizens.

When asked, "How do you generally feel about Russians – residents of Russia?", only 8% of Ukrainians expressed a positive attitude, while 85% said their attitude was negative. The results are almost identical to 2024.

As of September 2025, the vast majority of Ukrainians in all regions – from 91% in the west to 73% in the east – viewed Russians negatively. The share of those with a positive attitude did not exceed 14% (in the east).

In total, 82% of respondents (83% in the west, 84% in the centre, 76% in the south, and 78% in the east) said Russians living in Russia should not be allowed into Ukraine. KIIS notes that these results show a persistently critical perception of Russians across all regions – including the east.

Sociologists also point out that when Ukrainians express critical views of Russians, they tend to refer to "Russians" as a political rather than an ethnic category.

Attitudes toward Ukrainians living in Russia are somewhat less negative but still unfavourable: 49% of respondents believe they should also be barred from entering Ukraine.

"That is, for Ukrainians in Ukraine, even ethnic Ukrainians in Russia are enemies, since, most likely, they are perceived as part of the 'Russian world', which is a broader political concept than the narrower definition of 'ethnic Russians'," KIIS notes.

For reference: The nationwide KIIS public opinion survey Omnibus was conducted from 2 to 14 September 2025 using telephone interviews based on a random sample of mobile phone numbers (with random number generation and subsequent statistical weighting) across all government-controlled regions of Ukraine.

Researchers interviewed a total of 1,023 respondents aged 18 and over, all residing in areas under the control of the Ukrainian government at the time of the survey.

Under normal circumstances, the sampling error for a survey of 1,023 respondents (with a 0.95 confidence level and a design effect of 1.3) does not exceed 4.1%. Under wartime conditions, in addition to this formal sampling error, certain systematic deviations may also occur.

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