“Public interest in the development of the conflict in Ukraine remains strong, and perceptions of who is to blame for the war seem largely unchanged. What is declining, however, is the optimism among Czechs regarding a possible early end to the fighting. This is likely linked to the practical collapse of the initial plans by the new U.S. President Donald Trump for a swift end to the war,” says STEM analyst Jiří Táborský.
STEM has repeatedly surveyed public opinion on possible developments in the war in Ukraine. In the most recent poll in January of this year, the most likely outcome was seen as a quick end to the fighting in exchange for peace, security guarantees for Ukraine short of NATO membership, and the ceding of Ukraine’s eastern territories to Russia. Currently, the most frequently chosen scenario is that the war will continue for several more years, albeit with reduced intensity.
At the same time, Czechs’ belief in Ukraine’s chances of joining NATO has significantly declined. While in January, 18 percent of the population considered a scenario involving peace in exchange for NATO membership and territorial concessions to Russia likely, that number has now dropped to just 10 percent. The share of the population that sees a full Ukrainian victory and the restoration of all its territory as probable also remains very low—currently at only 8 percent.
Skepticism about the further development of the conflict is not accompanied by a decline in interest in the war itself. On the contrary, interest remains above 50% among those who declare that they follow the events to some extent. Since the beginning of the war, the view on who is to blame for the conflict has also practically remained unchanged. “We asked about agreement with the categorical statement that Russia is unequivocally the culprit of the war in Ukraine and the aggressor, a question we also posed in 2023. The results differ by only a few percentage points over the three years, and the opinion that Russia is the main culprit of the war clearly predominates,” says Táborský.
In addition, STEM also measured two frequently repeated narratives of Russian propaganda: that Ukraine is an artificial state whose borders have no historical justification, and that NATO is primarily to blame for the war because it threatened and provoked Russia. Less than one-third of the Czech population leans toward both of these narratives, and here too, shifts since the beginning of the conflict have been minimal.
The growing skepticism is also reflected in the decreasing willingness of Czechs to send military aid to Ukraine. Currently, nearly 50 percent of the population (just under by one percentage point) considers our military assistance to be too much. “The gradual decline in support for sending military aid is an inevitable result of increasing skepticism about the future development of the conflict. Since only a very small number of people believe in a complete victory for Ukraine, and fewer and fewer people expect a quick resolution, they do not see much point in sending military aid,” summarizes Táborský.
The final question addressed by the current research related to the conflict in Ukraine was the Czech public’s trust in various media sources reporting on the conflict. “Whether people consider the information from a given media source to be trustworthy is unsurprisingly conditioned by their overall trust in that media outlet. Therefore, Czechs tend to prefer public broadcasters, which generally enjoy the highest level of trust,” explains Táborský, adding that at the lower end of the scale are so-called alternative media, such as Aeronet or Parlamentní listy, while Russian media like TASS or Russia Today have completely fallen out of favor.
The cited research by the non-profit research institute STEM (www.stem.cz) was conducted on a representative sample of residents of the Czech Republic aged 18 and over at various times, primarily during June 2025 (June 12–26, 2025). Respondents were selected using quota sampling. A total of 1,059 respondents answered the questions of the June survey through a combination of online and face-to-face interviews (CAWI+CAPI).
