A majority of Ukrainians oppose handing over the eastern Donbas territory to Russia in exchange for promises of peace, and the number of Ukrainians ready to fight the Kremlin “as long as is necessary” is increasing, a major public opinion published on Monday found.
Slightly more than half – 52% – of respondents “categorically reject” the idea of transferring title to Ukraine’s Donbas region to Russia in exchange for security guarantees, while 40% are willing to consider it, according to findings published by the Ukrainian political research group Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS).
The prevailing view across Ukrainian society that the country would not be made safer by meeting Russian demands to give the Kremlin Ukraine’s Luhansk and Donetsk regions – approximately 20% of Ukraine’s territory and population – where the front is stable and has not changed for months, KIIS Executive Director Anton Hrushetsky said in a statement.
The White House led by President Donald J. Trump since coming to power in February 2025 has pressured his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky to give Russia sovereignty over Ukraine’s Donbas region in a peace treaty resembling a real estate deal. Zelensky in statements has said those terms are impossible to meet because the Ukrainian Constitution bans it and the Ukrainian people wouldn’t agree to it.
Unwillingness to meet Kremlin/White House demands on Donbas’ status is most intractable among the residents of Kyiv, at 59 percent, but majorities in all regions of the country are against the transfer, even in Ukraine’s predominantly Russian-speaking East, the poll found.
The KIIS survey collected opinions of 1,003 randomly-elected adult respondents in telephone interviews conducted Jan. 23-29. The maximum margin of error of responses given was 4.1 percent, a KIIS statement said. All interviewees were physically in government-controlled Ukrainian territory at the time of the interviews.
An even greater slice of Ukrainians polled – 65% – agreed with the statement that they are ready to endure war for “as long as necessary.” Public willingness to keep fighting was found to be slightly lower (62 percent) in polls previously conducted in September and December 2025.
During the seven-day period of the KIIS polling, the Kremlin launched four major strikes targeting Ukrainian energy infrastructure, sending a combined 22 missiles and more than 750 kamikaze drones to hit the cities of Kyiv, Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Dnipro, Odesa, and Zaporizhzhia. The attacks killed at least three people and left more than three million without power or heating, in some cases for days.
“As of late January 2026, the Russian campaign of large-scale strikes on Ukrainian energy and efforts to plunge the population into darkness and cold have not had a significant impact on public sentiment. We do not observe an increase in support for ‘peace on any terms’. In particular, we do not observe it in the capital (Kyiv) which has been a particular target of strikes in January. On the contrary, we see that the will to continue the resistance remains among the majority of the population,” Hrushetsky said.
At least 88 percent of Ukrainians believe that by attacking the energy sector, Russia is trying to leave Ukrainians without electricity and heat and force them to surrender, and 90% of Ukrainians believe Ukraine should strike back at Russian territory, the poll found.
Ukrainians per the poll findings are not optimistic that their country’s massive, conventional war with Russia, now nearly four years old following Kremlin invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, will end any time soon, with only 20 percent of Ukrainians expecting peace with Russia during the first half of 2026, 18% in the second half of 2026, a majority 43 predicting 2027 or later, and 19 responding “it’s hard to say” when the shooting might stop.
Ukrainian willingness to accept the danger and discomfort of war, in order that their country stay intact and Russian troops leave their country, is strong and by some metrics slightly increasing, the poll found.
A majority of Ukrainians, 65%, told pollsters they are ready to endure the war “for as long as necessary,” while 17% of respondents said they are only willing to wait less than a year, before they would be willing to consider making major concessions to Russia. Numbers of Ukrainians most-committed to continued resistance to Russian invasion were highest in Kyiv (72%), but readiness to fight on is strong nation-wide (West-66%, North-64 %, South-64%, East-58%), the poll found.
The Trump administration in February 2025 cut off all arms donations to Ukraine following the Republican takeover of power and a shift in Washington from support of Ukraine against Russia to friendlier relations with the Kremlin. The Trump regime’s thoughts were that using the arms cut-off, by leaving Ukrainian civilians at times unprotected against Russian missile strikes would accelerate the peace process, by demonstrating to the Ukrainian civilian population that concessions to Russia are unavoidable, Trump and other senior administration officials said at the time.
That Trump pressure tactic has thus far failed because Ukrainians are more resilient than both Russia and the Republican leadership calculated, Hurshetsky said.
“In the fall of 2022, many could not imagine how it would be possible to live in conditions of no electricity. However, ordinary Ukrainians and businesses survived and demonstrated high adaptability.
“By the beginning of 2025, many could not imagine that Ukraine would be able to fight without full support from the United States – but again, the Ukrainians were able to do it,” Hurshetsky said.
“The severe winter of 2025-2026 is another challenge for Ukraine and Ukrainians… Ukrainians are once again demonstrating that they are able to survive in the most difficult conditions. And not just survive, but also maintain optimism and will.”