Ukrainians' confidence that the United States and European partners would provide the support needed to repel a renewed Russian attack has fallen since the start of 2026, with the sharpest drop recorded in attitudes toward Washington, according to a survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS).
Europe: trust slips, but majority still expects support
At the beginning of the year, 59% of Ukrainians expected Europe to provide the support necessary to fend off a renewed Russian attack. That figure has now fallen to 52%. Over the same period, the share of Ukrainians who do not believe Europe would deliver the necessary support rose from 31% to 41%.
Despite the decline, those who continue to trust European security guarantees still outnumber those who doubt them.
United States: from parity to majority disbelief
The shift in attitudes toward Washington is more pronounced. In January, Ukrainians who trusted US security guarantees and those who did not were roughly evenly split. By April, a clear majority no longer believes the United States would provide the necessary support.
The share of Ukrainians who doubt US guarantees has climbed from 40% to 57%, while the share of those who trust them has fallen from 39% to 27%.
KIIS sociologists separately note that, in the case of the United States, the share of respondents who could not answer the question is twice as high as for Europe — 16% against 7%. Disbelief in Washington runs highest in Kyiv, where 69% do not expect the US to help repel a renewed attack, according to the regional breakdown.
KIIS: US war against Iran shook faith in American support
KIIS executive director Anton Hrushetskyi links the erosion of trust to wider developments — in particular, the US-Israel war against Iran, which he argues has both benefited Russia economically and damaged Ukrainian confidence in Washington.
"The US operation in Iran not only delivered substantial economic benefits to Russia (which helps it continue killing Ukrainians) but also further shook faith in the reliability of American support," Hrushetskyi writes in his commentary on the survey.
He warns that under such conditions it is pointless to expect Ukrainians to approve a peace agreement whose durability rests on US security guarantees. The slide in trust toward Europe, he adds, is also troubling: a sense of European backing and a European future is one of the pillars of Ukrainian resilience, and disappointment in Europe could weaken the moral and psychological will to continue resistance and open space for populist forces with anti-European messaging.
Wider context: who blocks peace, and what Ukrainians will accept
The trust figures sit alongside other findings from the same KIIS survey. Asked who is most obstructing efforts to end the war, 60% of Ukrainians named Russia, 14% the United States, 7% Ukraine itself, 5% Europe, and 2% China.
On the proposal to hand the entire Donetsk Oblast over to Russian control in exchange for Western security guarantees, 57% of respondents called it categorically unacceptable, while 36% would agree to such terms — most of them describing it as a difficult but tolerable condition. Compared with early March, the share of those categorically opposed has slipped from 62% to 57%.
Patience for a long war is also eroding. The share of Ukrainians ready to endure the war for as long as necessary fell from 54% in early March to 48% in late April, while the share who could not answer rose from 16% to 19%. Just 31% of Ukrainians expect the war to end by the close of 2026; nearly half — 48% — expect it to continue into 2027 or later.
Background: Donbas withdrawal dispute
The poll follows a public disagreement over the terms on which Washington has reportedly offered Ukraine security guarantees.
On 25 March, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that the United States was offering Kyiv security guarantees only in exchange for the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from the unoccupied part of Donbas, European Pravda recalls.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio subsequently called Zelenskyy's account false on 27 March.
On 28 March, Zelenskyy maintained his position, insisting that during the negotiation process the United States had signaled willingness to provide security guarantees once the Ukrainian Armed Forces withdrew from Donbas.
