Russian & Ukrainian Attitudes to Belarus Maidan

KMIS poll on Ukrainian attitudes to Lukashenko vs. protesters from:

It was carried out on 12-16 September, i.e. after the breakdown of Belorussian-Ukrainian relations following Lukashenko’s about turn on extraditing the Russian mercs to Ukraine.

Across the Ukraine, 31% support Lukashenko while 45% support the protesters. I would actually probably similar to figures for Belarus as a whole). But as expected, there are big regional differences, with 40-45% of the South and East supporting Lukashenko and 30% supporting the protesters, vs. 20% and almost 60%, respectively, in West Ukraine.

Most ideological groupings are similar to each other, with the major exception of Poroshenko supporters (almost universally pro-protester) and Boyko/Opposition Block supporters (overwhelmingly pro-Luka).


For comparison, in Russia, Lukashenko supporters constitute 46% vs. 17% for the protesters, according to this FOM poll, i.e. similar to results from S/E-Ukraine.

By far the biggest predictor of Russian political attitudes is age, reflecting a similar VCIOM poll I covered back in August. Whereas 68% support Luka vs. 9% protesters amongst 60+ y/o’s, this reverses into an outright plurality of 18-30 y/o’s supporting Luka, at just 19% vs. 30% who support the protesters.

Comments

  1. Please keep off topic posts to the current Open Thread.

    If you are new to my work, start here.

  2. Undocumented Shopper says

    In related news, The Wall Street Journal points out that NATO’s strategic position may get worse.
    An excerpt:

    (,,,)Russian demands for greater sway, which have long included putting military bases on Belarusian territory.

    That could position Russian forces as a pincer on either side of the 60-mile Polish-Lithuanian border, which is the only land route between the Baltic states and the rest of North Atlantic Treaty Organization territory. Dubbed the Suwalki Gap after the small Polish city in its middle, it is seen as the alliance’s weak point.

    “Suwalki is much less of a concern if you don’t have Russian troops in Belarus,” said retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, former commander of U.S. Army Europe. “If you do, it’s a different calculation in terms of the time, speed and power they can bring.”

    “It would dramatically change the calculations we have for the defense of the Baltics,” said a Lithuanian defense official. Belarus as a Russian buffer “gives us breathing space of a few days, which are vital.”
    (…)
    Since then, NATO has focused on increasing defense and deterrence on its eastern flank, primarily by stationing four multinational battalions totaling some 4,000 troops in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Poland. NATO strategists worry about the Suwalki Gap because Russia’s military superiority in the region means it could seek quickly to cut the Baltics off from allied reinforcements by land.

    “Securing the Suwalki Gap is regularly tested in allied exercises, and free movement of NATO forces within allied territory is an important part of our defense posture,” said NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu. NATO’s presence in the region is aimed at preventing conflict, she said, and the alliance “remains vigilant, defensive and prepared to deter any aggression against allies.”

    Full text at:
    https://www.wsj.com/articles/russias-embrace-of-lukashenko-puts-the-west-on-alert-11601295407
    (and lots of public libraries give free access to WSJ through their websites)

  3. Just found that Russia’s biggest women’s site supports the pro-western protests against Lukashenko.

    https://www.woman.ru/rest/samyi-krasivyi-protest-v-mire-istorii-belorusskikh-zhenshin-vosstavshikh-protiv-omona-id519926/

    Most of the russian commenters there support the protests too.

    Do you have stats on russian women’s views about the Belarus protests?

    Looks like women are a large amount of the protesters in Belarus too.

    I’m thinking that there could be a gender angle in this, judging by the fact that the opposition is female led.

  4. Commentator Mike says

    It doesn’t bode well for Russia’s future if so many of the youth support obvious fifth column Western agents in Belarus. They’ve all got their jeans, Western brands, and McDonalds burgers since the fall of the Soviet Union so what more do they want that the West has to offer?

  5. I’m thinking that there could be a gender angle in this, judging by the fact that the opposition is female led.

    Most of them have husbands who served as the original opposition figures who got arrested/fled the country and took over in their place.

  6. No, this is an urban legend.

    As per that FOM poll: 48% of Russian men and 44% of women support Luka; 18% of men and 16% of women support the protesters.

    As regards the protesters – it is safer for women to protest since they have a lower risk of being arrested and a much lower risk of being roughed up.

  7. Ok, thanks.

    The FOM poll site did not mention gender, but i found it in an excel file.

    Although there is a bit bigger difference whether Russia should support Lukashenko or not.

    So why do they have “women marches” in Belarus if there is no gender angle in those protests?

  8. There is a problem with the russian internet imo. Many of the sites are pro-western or pro-liberal. I have even seen pro-LGBT stuff by journalists in government run sites, as well as mud throwing at Russia.

    Even government media sometimes pushes for liberal stuff, it looks like people working in the media are liberal even when they are paid to be not.

    Recently VK started hunting for “Homophobia”, which isn’t a good sign for what is going on in the russian internet space.

    I don’t think it is driven by the government, rather it is people in various positions doing their own thing and pushing their own agendas. Liberal infiltration of various areas as well as blind copying of the west.

    Imo a large part of the brainwash of young people is internet related.

  9. Just found that Russia’s biggest women’s site supports the pro-western protests against Lukashenko.

    An American conservative writer once said that the Right would be well served to buy up the women’s magazines rather than spend lots of money on television advertisements.

    Afiak, no billionaires took them up on this. But we have seen leftist/cuckservative billionaires buy off some religious publications which have a mostly female audience.

  10. Esau traded his birthright…

    Ask yourself why so many young women in the U.S. from conservative white parents are BLM supporters.

    There’s isn’t really an economic interest, student debt is rarely mentioned.

    One of our crutches is to blame it on “daddy issues”, another crutch is “brainwashing”.

    What it is, is that most of the world outside of censored China and isolated Haredi/Amish are drinking the same cultural bilge water. Mostly produced in New York and Los Angeles (London to a lesser degree), areas where the Republican Party has been dead for almost two decades.

    We can’t “think globally, act locally”. We must “think locally, act globally”, because the real fight for the culture is in Middle America.

    It’s not “Belarus or Bust”. It’s “Illinois or Bust”

  11. So why do they have “women marches” in Belarus if there is no gender angle in those protests?

    What AK wrote:

    As regards the protesters – it is safer for women to protest since they have a lower risk of being arrested and a much lower risk of being roughed up.

  12. another anon says

    Exactly. This is the reason to why women are used in the front in protests – protests are about optics, and are no better optics for protestors than brute cops manhandling beautiful protesting girls. Looks like toxic masculinity at its worst.

    Solution is easy – recruit special female-only police force to deploy against female protestors.

  13. Are younger Russians buying into the Color Revo/Liberty poz, some other form of Anti-Putlerism, or what?

    I’m not happy to see the younger generations in Russia getting soft re: the antics of the Fake Gay Rainbow Empire.

  14. I don’t think they’re ‘buying’ into anything, if one word defines the Russian attitude to politics, it’s apathy. Young people just see a stagnating economy, staggering levels of wealth-inequality and corruption, and assume the grass is greener elsewhere. Cheerleading for a government that allows people like Peskov to flourish is not ‘based’. This isn’t to say the average Russian doesn’t see the developing freakshow in much of the West with disgust either.

    денег нет, но мы держимся