When Russia invaded Ukraine in the spring of 2022, President Vladimir Putin mistakenly believed that it would be a swift acquisition.

In fact, for three years, negotiators from both countries are temporarily exploring the idea of ​​negotiating the path from a large number of stalemate conflicts.

So, what went wrong with the Kremlin's preliminary assessment? In addition to underestimating the vulnerability of the Russian army, analysts suggested that Moscow also miscalculated the support Russia would receive from Ukrainians who had close ties to Russia in the east.

Our recent study on Russian sentiment in Ukraine before and after the invasion retracts this claim. It shows that even those Ukrainians who had close ties to Russia based on race, language, religion or location changed their loyalty immediately after the invasion. For example, just before the 2022 invasion, Russians in eastern Ukraine spoke inclined to blame the West on tensions with Russia. But immediately after the invasion, they blamed Moscow on roughly the same number as non-Russian Ukrainians.

Furthermore, this transition is not only a transient response. Three years after the invasion, we conducted an investigation and found that the Ukrainians still blamed Russia's tensions on a level that had never been so consistent before 2022.

Natural experiments

Our research is part of a larger project that explores how Russian propaganda affects effective propaganda among adults in some former Soviet countries. Our first investigation was conducted in the fall of 2020, and issues concerning tensions between Ukraine and Russia were first raised in February 2022 until Russia invaded Ukraine.

In Ukraine, more than 1,000 Russian-speaking people completed the investigation - for security reasons - and Belarus, excluding Crimea and the Separatist Donbas region. Although the spring survey in Ukraine was conducted in person, others were conducted by phone due to the political situation in each country.

Belarus was chosen because it has a historical, linguistic and ethnic background similar to Ukraine, but the two countries differed on the geopolitical path. Shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Belarus, like Ukraine, worked hard in trying to establish a democratic system. But after Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko came to power in 1994, the country became a dictatorial country with high political and economic support for Russia.

Broadly speaking, Ukraine has the opposite trajectory. Relations between Ukraine and Russia fluctuated during the first few years of independence. But since the Maidan Revolution from November 2013 to February 2014, a firm pro-Western leadership has emerged.

Nevertheless, some of Ukraine's population remained affinity for Russia - most notably, the country's eastern part talks about the older generation of Russia.

Our investigation provides a natural experiment examining the effects of Russian invasion on former pro-Russian public sentiment.

Ukraine is a "treatment" group, and Belarus is a "quasi-control" group, and the difference factor is the Russian invasion. The questions we asked: "Who do you think is responsible for the intensification of tensions between Russia and Ukraine?" and "How does Russian policy affect your country in general?"

Summary of blame

We find that in Ukraine, but not in Belarus, the experience of geopolitical views being invaded was completely unified. On one level, this is not surprising - after all, the people of the invaded state are expected to maintain a certain degree of resentment towards the invading army.

But what we found most interesting was that in Ukraine, this influence greatly covered the division between various identities before the invasion. This is most prominent in people’s perceptions of who should blame the tension.

Before the invasion, 69.7% of Ukraine respondents generally blamed Russia for the tension between the two countries, and by August 2022, 30.3% of respondents blamed NATO, Ukraine or the United States for 30.3% and 97.3% of respondents in Ukraine, Russia blamed Russia for the tension in Russia and only blamed 2.7% of NATO, NATO, Ukraine or ours for 2.7% of our respondents.

In contrast, in neighboring Belarusian countries, 15.5% of respondents blamed Russia for committing tensions before the invasion, and only 21.9% blamed Russia for its invasion.

This almost consistent consistency in Ukraine masks the huge changes you see when the population differences break down. For example, before the invasion, blame varies greatly across Ukraine, but converges after the invasion. Before the invasion, only 36.0% of respondents in eastern Ukraine and 51.4% of respondents in southern Ukraine blamed Russia for tensions. After the invasion, 96% of respondents in both regions blamed Russia.

Similar effects can be seen among other population differences. Only 30.6% of Catholics in Ukraine blamed Russia for the tensions before the invasion, while 83.0% of Catholics blamed Russia.

Opinions that had been layered before the invasion became unified.

To examine this trend is not only an immediate temporary post-invasion, we conducted our investigations again in September 2024 and February 2025. The total proportion of tensions that blame Ukrainians on Russia remained at 85.7% and 84.5% respectively. Again, these results are achieved in various population collapses.

In February 2025, the latest survey was that 77.2% of respondents in eastern Ukraine and 83.0% of respondents in southern China blamed Russia. Catholics in Ukraine continue to blame Russia, 90.7% in September 2024 and 90.6% in February 2025. Overall, the percentage of people who blame Russia is small, and the cause of war fatigue is the possible cause.

The consequences of peace

Our findings suggest that in times of collective threat, divisions within society often disappear when people come together to face a common enemy.

Now, this could have huge consequences, as various political parties, including the United States, have considered a peace proposal to end the Russian-Ukrainian war. Among the options explored, there is a scenario where the current front line is frozen.

This would require recognition of the territory occupied by Crimea, as well as the separatist areas of Donetsk and Luhansk as part of Russia. But this will also effectively abandon the southeastern provinces of Hosen and Zaparishiya in Ukraine.

Although our survey cannot explain how the situation has come among the Crimeans, Donetsk and Luhansk peoples, the study does include Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Our findings suggest that even among Russian-speaking people in these regions, the feeling of Ukrainian identity is increasing.