More than half of Russians support peace talks with Ukraine to end the war, Meduza investigative journalists write, referring to the results of a closed survey commissioned by the Kremlin.

The poll was conducted by the Federal Security Service (FSO), which the Kremlin calls a sensitive survey of public opinion that is not intended to be made public.

As Meduza writes, the survey shows that now 55% of Russians are in favor of peace talks with Ukraine and only 25% are in favor of continuing the war started by President Vladimir Putin on February 24.

Meduza journalists, who were the first in July to publish information that Russia wants to annex all occupied Ukrainian territories, not just Luhansk and Donetsk regions, note that the results of this survey generally coincide with the results of another conducted by the Levada Center from Moscow in 2018. October.

“Levada Center” is considered the only large sociological center in Russia that still remains independent.

The number of Russians who want peace talks has almost doubled

In a poll conducted by Levada, 57% of respondents were “for” or “rather for” peace talks. “For” and “rather for” the continuation of the “special operation” were expressed by 27% of respondents.

Meduza notes that, judging by these two polls, Russians’ attitudes toward war have deteriorated dramatically recently.

For example, in July, another internal Kremlin command poll found that only 30 percent of Russians believe that hostilities with Ukraine should end “as soon as possible.”

Meduza now cites two sources close to President Putin’s administration who say that in light of this development, Russian authorities intend to limit the number of polls on Russian attitudes to the war.

Previously, such polls were regularly conducted by the Russian Center for Public Opinion Polling, VTCIOM.

Russians do not want to go to the front to fight

“Whatever is possible now, it’s better not to do it,” says one of the quoted sources.

The director of the Levada Center, Denys Volkov, told Meduza journalists that the number of Russians who support negotiations with Ukraine began to grow rapidly after President Vladimir Putin announced partial mobilization on September 21.

“This is the reluctance of citizens to personally participate in hostilities. Their support [pentru lupte] remains high, but the desire to personally participate in it is quite low among people,” he states, adding that:

“Also, the support from the beginning was declarative on the grounds that people saw it as something that didn’t concern them – ‘life goes on and even gets better.’ Now the stakes have increased and people want to start negotiations. At the same time, the majority still leaves the situation to the authorities: “We would like to, but they decide.”

Sociologist Hryhoriy Yudin, whom “Meduza” contacted, in his turn connects the increase in the number of Russians who want peace talks with Ukraine with mobilization.

According to him, another argument for the Russians in favor of negotiations will be “the loss of confidence in victory due to defeats at the front and the lack of a convincing theory of how Russia will win.”

However, political scientist Volodymyr Gelman says that it is unlikely that the dynamics of public opinion about the war will push the Kremlin to real negotiations with Ukraine.

He reminds that the Russian side is “not ready to make concessions” and that “in general, the prospects for negotiations depend on the course of hostilities, and not at all on the preferences of voters.”

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