Poll finds most Ukrainians believe Ukraine’s government, NATO and the U.S. bear some responsibility for Ukraine war

A new poll has found that more than two-thirds of Ukrainians (70%) believe Ukraine’s government bears either a great deal or some responsibility for Ukraine’s conflict with Russia. The poll also found that a majority of Ukrainians believe the United States (58%) and NATO (55%) bear either a great deal or some responsibility for the conflict.

The poll was conducted by the nonpartisan and objective research organization (NORC) at the University of Chicago, with funding from the Wall Street Journal, from June 9 to June 13, 2022.

If you ascribe to the Western view that Ukraine includes Crimea and those regions of the Donbas that were under separatist control prior to the beginning of Russia’s invasion on February 24, 2022, then this poll very likely understates, to a considerable degree, the proportion of Ukrainians who believe that Ukraine’s government, the U.S. and NATO bear responsibility for the war. The reason for this is that the poll excluded Crimea and the separatist-controlled parts of Donbas, where there are relatively high concentrations of ethnically Russian and pro-Russian Ukrainians.

Moreover, Zelensky’s government has aggressively suppressed pro-Russian perspectives in Ukraine. In early 2021, Zelensky signed a decree banning three pro-Russian television channels. Then, in March of this year, Zelensky banned eleven political parties deemed by his government to be ‘pro-Russian’, including Opposition Platform — For Life, the largest opposition party in Ukraine’s Parliament immediately prior to the ban. If Ukrainians could express pro-Russian perspectives freely, it is reasonable to assume that an even higher proportion of respondents would have faulted Ukraine’s government, the United States and NATO for the conflict.

Even if we take these poll results at face value, the NORC/WSJ poll blows a gaping hole in the Western narrative about the Ukraine war. Specifically, Western governments have claimed repeatedly that Russia’s attempts to blame Ukraine, the U.S. and NATO for the war are ‘disinformation’. Are we seriously to believe that Ukrainians themselves are being manipulated by Russian disinformation? Notably, the NORC/WSJ poll found that seventy-six percent of the respondents viewed the Russian people very or somewhat negatively. It therefore strains credulity to suggest that Ukrainians in general are unduly influenced by Russia’s claims about the war.

Of course, none of this means that Russia is blameless for the war – indeed, the poll found that a huge majority of respondents (85%) believe that Russia bears a great deal (82%) or some (3%) responsibility for the war – but the claim that Ukraine’s government, the U.S. and NATO are innocent in this disaster simply cannot be reconciled with the views of the Ukrainian people.