Features UKRAINE UPDATE; THE ATTITUDE CLIMATE IN 2026

In 2018 and 2021, I wrote two articles for Baltic Worlds on Ukraine and the Ukrainian attitude climate in the context of the ongoing Russian attack on Ukraine, launched in 2014. The empirical data used in the articles was largely taken from the website of the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), whose press releases and reports are accessible in Ukrainian, Russian, and English. The KIIS surveys covered the territory governed by the Government of Ukraine before February 2022. One of the key purposes of the articles was to give the Ukrainian population a more international voice, taking into account the pro-Russian bias of the international research community as pointed out e.g. in the Kuzio-Sakwa debate.(See Taras Kuzio, Crisis in Russian studies? Nationalism (Imperialism), Racism and War (Bristol: E-International Relations Publishing, 2020); Richard Sakwa, Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands (London: B. Tauris, 2015). Now, it may be interesting to take a new look at the attitude climate in Ukraine and how it has changed; the war has continued since 2014 and escalated in 2022, and while the international community keeps speaking about peace and security guarantees, there is no real perspective of the war ending.

Published in the printed edition of Baltic Worlds BW 2026:1 pp 88-93
Published on balticworlds.com on April 23, 2026

In 2018 and 2021, I wrote two articles for Baltic Worlds on Ukraine and the Ukrainian attitude climate in the context of the ongoing Russian attack on Ukraine, launched in 2014. The empirical data used in the articles was largely taken from the website of the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), whose press releases and reports are accessible in Ukrainian, Russian, and English. The KIIS surveys covered the territory governed by the Government of Ukraine before February 2022. One of the key purposes of the articles was to give the Ukrainian population a more international voice, taking into account the pro-Russian bias of the international research community as pointed out e.g. in the Kuzio-Sakwa debate.(See Taras Kuzio, Crisis in Russian studies? Nationalism (Imperialism), Racism and War (Bristol: E-International Relations Publishing, 2020); Richard Sakwa, Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands (London: B. Tauris, 2015).

Now, it may be interesting to take a new look at the attitude climate in Ukraine and how it has changed; the war has continued since 2014 and escalated in 2022, and while the international community keeps speaking about peace and security guarantees, there is no real perspective of the war ending.

Full article as a pdf for free download, see upper right corner.

 

Simo Mannila