The share of Russians who favor peace talks on resolving the Russian-Ukrainian war over continuing the hostilities has crept up to a record level: 65.9%, according to the Levada Center’s August poll. But while many of the August poll’s respondents favor peace talks over war, 78% of them also support the actions of the Russian army, which has been gaining some 170 square miles in Ukraine per month this year. Such a high level of approval for Russia’s military action in the neighboring state, combined with Vladimir Putin’s high approval rating (87%), may be indicating that common Russians won’t support an end to the war unless the country’s military-political leadership publicly does so. 

Another interesting outcome of Levada’s August poll is that as many as 30% of its respondents revealed that they have a relative, friend or acquaintance that has been killed in the war. In addition, 28% of the poll’s respondents revealed that their relatives, friends, acquaintances or the respondents themselves are fighting in the war, in which 125,681 Russian servicemen have been identified as killed.¹ These significant percentages (26%) and (28%) signal how wide and tangible the impact of the conflict on the Russian public has become, despite the Kremlin’s effort to limit the impact of what its propagandists at least initially insisted was not a war, but a “special operation,” threatening those who called a spade a spade with prosecution. 

Given the aforementioned record high support for peace talks by Russians polled in the August survey, it is not surprising that a record low share (27%) of the poll’s respondents across Russia support continuing Russian military action in Ukraine. However, if one looks at the share of respondents in Moscow who support continued combat, it is almost double the national average (47%). That could be at least partially explained by the fact that while 40% of respondents across Russia said the war did not impact them and their families at all, in Moscow that share rose to 50%.² As for when the war may conclude, more Russians (39%) believe the war will continue for over a year than believe it will end in half a year or less (36%), according to Levada.

Footnotes:

1. Here are estimates of Russian servicemen killed and injured [in chronological order] from RM’s Russia-Ukraine War Report Card, Sept. 3, 2025.
   1. 600,000 killed or injured, according to Trump’s December 2024 estimate.
   2. 1,000,000 killed, according to Trump’s January 2025 estimate.
   3. More than 750,000 killed or injured, according to a March 2025 estimate by DNI/U.S. intelligence community.
   4. 950,000 killed or injured, according to CSIS’s June 2025 estimate, including 250,000 killed and 700,000 injured.
   5. More than 790,000 killed or injured, according to an April 2025 estimate by then-SACEUR Cavoli.
   6. More than 1,000,000, including 250,000 killed, according to the U.K. Defense Ministry’s June 2025 estimate.
   7. 100,000 Russian soldiers have died in the war this year, NATO Secretary General Matt Rutte said in July 2025.
   8. 219,000 Russian soldiers killed in the Ukraine war, according to Meduza and Mediazona’s August 2025 estimate.
2. When asked to measure the war’s impact on a scale of 1 to 5 with 1 meaning “did not impact at all” and 5 meaning “very strongly impacted,” the share of respondents across Russia who chose 1 and 2 totaled 51%, while the share of Muscovites who chose 1 and 2 was 61%.

Opinions expressed herein are solely those of the author. Photo by AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko.