70% of Ukrainians do not believe peace talks will lead to lasting peace – survey

A survey has shown that 70% of Ukrainians do not believe that current talks involving Russia and the US on ending the war in Ukraine will lead to lasting peace.

Source: a survey by Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) conducted on 12-24 February

Details: At the same time, 25% of respondents believe that talks will lead to lasting peace. Another 5% have not decided on their opinion. Compared to mid-January 2026, there have been no changes on this issue.

Sociologists noted that in January 2026 they asked an additional open-ended question about why Ukrainians do not believe talks will succeed and respondents primarily explained this by Russia and its position.

"Ukrainians continue to be critical of the current peace negotiations and the majority do not have optimistic expectations for them. The practical realities in Ukraine – the Russian pressure on the front despite their massive losses, the Russian terror of the civilian population and attempts to freeze and leave without electricity in the cold winter, the uncompromising genocidal statements of the Russian leadership and more – leave little reason for Ukrainians to believe in the Russian desire to end the war in the near future. In particular, Ukrainians understand that if the Russians are ready to end the war, it will only be on terms that would be the actual surrender of Ukraine (and they will not accept anything else).

At the same time, Ukrainians remain open to difficult compromises and are ready to discuss them – but not at the price of capitulation," KIIS Executive Director Anton Hrushetskyi commented.

For reference: The KIIS Omnibus survey was conducted on 12-24 February 2026 by telephone interviews based on a random sample of mobile phone numbers (with random generation of phone numbers and subsequent statistical weighting) in all government-controlled oblasts of Ukraine.

In total, 2,004 respondents were surveyed – citizens of Ukraine aged 18 and older who at the time of the poll lived in government-controlled territory of Ukraine.

Formally, under normal circumstances, the statistical error of such a sample of about 1,000 respondents (with a probability of 0.95 and taking into account the design effect of 1.3) did not exceed 4.1%. Under wartime conditions, in addition to the specified formal error, a certain systematic deviation is added.

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