DANYLIW RESEARCH SEMINAR ON CONTEMPORARY UKRAINE

Public Opinion and the Geopolitics of War Termination

The paper explores how shifts in public opinion in Russia and Ukraine may impact a willingness to enter negotiations. It tracks greater societal awareness of the scale of war casualties. Analysis of the gap between battlefield deaths and death reporting shows information about battlefield losses diffuses more gradually in Russia than in Ukraine. It finds that Russia’s strategy is to bring no credible enforcement of an agreement and that a militarily more capable Ukraine can actually make peace less attractive to Russia.

Jesse Driscoll is Professor of Political Science at the University of California San Diego. The paper was co-written with Taras Tsymbal.

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