Our tracker series finds Europeans are now less likely to think the West should back Ukraine until Russia withdraws
On 20 January 2025, Donald Trump will be inaugurated as US president once again. People across the world will be waiting to see what the incoming president outlines as his agenda, and nowhere more than Ukraine, whose ability to stave off the Russian invasion since 2022 has depended largely on US willingness to provide military and financial aid.
Trump’s approach to Ukraine, as well as NATO more widely, is the biggest foreign policy issue facing Europe. A new YouGov study conducted earlier this month explores opinion in seven Western European countries (Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Sweden), in terms of their expectations of Trump and attitudes to the wider Ukraine conflict.
The results show that the Western Europeans tend to think that Trump will cut off military and financial aid to Ukraine. Between 48-62% in each country see this a likely scenario, compared to 19-31% who see it as unlikely.
Europeans are less certain whether Trump will follow through on his threats to withdraw from NATO if European members don’t start to meet their defence spending obligations. Danes, Germans, Italians, Spaniards and Swedes are more likely to think this probably won’t to come to pass, while Britons and French people are evenly split.
How would Europeans react to a peace deal that left Russia in control of some parts of Ukraine?
It seems that Trump’s approach to Ukraine will be to impose a peace treaty that leaves Russia in possession of some conquered territory. Such a deal would be particularly unwelcome among Swedes, Danes, Britons (51-57%), but other countries are less bothered – only 31% of Italians and Germans would react negatively to such a deal.
Trump’s re-election may have sapped European belief that Ukraine can be kept in the fight until victory is possible. Our tracking data shows that, since the beginning of the year, the preference for supporting Ukraine until such a time as Russia withdraws has fallen by between seven and 14 percentage points.
At the same time, willingness to encourage a negotiated peace has risen by between three and ten points.
Whether this represents dwindling interest or fatigue is unclear. In several countries, like Denmark, France, Germany and Sweden, the proportion of the population saying they want Ukraine to win and care that they do so has remained about the same since our poll in February 2023. However, in Britain, Italy and Spain such sentiment has decreased since the beginning of last year.
Europeans still willing to back providing support to Ukraine – but not enough to win the war
Our results have consistently shown that most people across the countries surveyed (52-66% in this latest poll) believe that western countries have not been taking strong enough measures to prevent Russia from winning in Ukraine.
While the general preference in each country has been for Ukraine to win, this does not translate to a willingness to increase aid – just 11-29% say more support should be given to the beleaguered nation.
The plurality preference in Britain, Denmark, Spain and Sweden is to maintain current aid levels, while the French and Germans are split, and Italians tend to want to reduce support to Ukraine.
When it comes to specific forms of aid to Ukraine, support for maintaining current sanctions against Russia is still significantly higher than opposition in each country, as it is for imposing further economic sanctions. There is likewise backing for sending additional weaponry and supplies to Ukraine in most countries, although this has now become a divisive subject in France, and Italians have long since been opposed.
Europeans differ when it comes to defence spending
With the Russian invasion of Ukraine revealing to many that the continent is not the peaceful place it once was, debates are being held over whether defence spending needs to increase. Opinion on this subject is mixed in Western Europe – while Germans, Britons and Danes tend to come down on the side that defence spending is too low, French people and Spaniards are evenly divided, while Italians tend to think too much money is being spent on the military.
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Photo: Getty
