Ukrainians take part in the demonstration ''Stop Human Safari, Save Kherson,''
an international campaign against human suffering in Cherson, in Bonn, Germany, on December 14, 2025. | © picture alliance / NurPhoto
Most people in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Italy clearly endorse military support for Ukraine. They overwhelmingly reject Russia's positions on territorial claims and restrictions on Ukraine's political sovereignty. However, their approval has its limits: In particular, high casualty numbers for Ukraine and the danger of nuclear escalation reduce public backing, while economic burdens are scarcely a factor for the publics. These were the findings of a joint project located at LMU, in which researchers from LMU and the University of Konstanz compared data from a survey of the largest NATO arms exporting countries. This was the first study of its kind and its results have appeared in the journal Nature Communications.
The survey was conducted between June and August 2023.
Over 10,000 people were surveyed for the study, which was carried out by Junior Professor Lukas Rudolph from the University of Konstanz and Fabian Haggerty and Professor Paul W. Thurner from the Geschwister Scholl Institute of Political Science at LMU Munich. "We investigated whether Western governments can count on stable support from their populations for the support of Ukraine," explains Paul W. Thurner, Chair of Empirical Political Research and Policy Analysis at LMU. A key part of this was ascertaining how citizens weighed up the moral, strategic, and economic costs of support for Ukraine.
