Fewer Ukrainians now believe war will end in first half of 2026, survey shows

Only 21% of Ukrainians expect the war to end in the coming weeks or at least in the first half of 2026, compared with 33% in autumn 2025 and 26% in December, a survey has shown.

Source: a survey by Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) conducted on 23-29 January 2026

Details: On the other hand, a total of 18% of respondents expect the war to end in the second half of 2026, while another 43% believe it will end in 2027 or later, and 19% answered that it was "hard to say".

In September-October 2025, 33% of respondents expected that the war could end no later than the first half of 2026, while in December 2025 this view was held by 26%. Now the figure stands at 20%, meaning fewer people expect the war to end by mid-2026.

In your opinion, when might the war end?

At the same time, a majority of Ukrainians (65%) continue to say that they are ready to endure the war for as long as necessary. A shorter period (six months or several months) was mentioned by 17% of respondents.

In December 2025, 62% of Ukrainians said they were ready to endure the war for as long as necessary; the same share was recorded in September 2025.

"That is, we are currently not observing any significant changes in public mood. Despite Russia's large-scale attempts to create a humanitarian catastrophe, the same majority of Ukrainians are still determined to continue their resistance until an acceptable outcome is achieved," the sociologists say.

In all regions, a majority – 58-72% – are ready to endure the war for as long as necessary. In Kyiv, this share is 72%. In other regions, the figure is 66% in the west, 64% in the centre/north (excluding Kyiv), 64% in the south and 58% in the east.

How much longer are you willing to endure the war?

Respondents who did not answer that they were ready to endure the war for as long as necessary were asked an additional open-ended question about why they responded this way. Most often, respondents mentioned people dying/fear for the life and health of loved ones (29%), shelling and destruction (17%), economic hardship (17%), problems with electricity / heat supply (15%) and psychological difficulties (10%).

"At the same time, we note that in terms of the entire adult population, only 5% responded that they were not ready to endure the war for as long as necessary and attributed this to problems with electricity and/or heat supply," the researchers say.

For reference: The survey was conducted from 23 to 29 January. Using telephone interviews based on a random sample of mobile phone numbers, 1,003 respondents aged 18 and over were surveyed, all of whom were living in territory controlled by the Ukrainian government at the time of the survey. Residents of territories temporarily not controlled by the Ukrainian authorities were not included (although some respondents were internally displaced persons who had moved from occupied areas), and citizens who left the country after 24 February 2022 were also not surveyed.

Formally, under normal circumstances, the statistical error of such a sample (with a probability of 0.95 and taking into account the design effect of 1.3) did not exceed 4.1%. At the same time, for the question about the attitude towards the transfer of Donbass to Russian control in exchange for security guarantees, an experiment was conducted where half of the respondents (i.e. about 500) were asked a regular direct question (how acceptable it is for the respondent), and the other half were asked using the "imagined acquaintance" method. Therefore for this question, the error does not exceed 5.8%.

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