John Rees looks at the way the public are turning against the war hawks, both in Britain and the Ukraine

As Keir Starmer orders British Storm Shadow missiles to be fired into Russian territory without parliamentary debate or approval, public support for the war is crumbling. In the UK, virtually no one believes that Ukraine is winning the war. Some 34% believe that Russia is winning, while 36% think that the war is a stalemate.

That perception fits with the facts on the ground, where Russia, at huge human cost, is taking ground in the east of Ukraine and has recaptured half the territory it lost when Ukraine invaded its Kursk region last August.

And polls show that the public is very clear that the Ukraine-Russia war is a proxy war. A full 58% say that the Ukraine would just stop fighting if it were not backed by the US. Only 13% think that Ukraine would carry on fighting without US support.

Even sections of the political establishment have their doubts about whether the deployment of British Storm Shadow missiles will make any difference to Ukraine’s prospects of victory. James Nixey, Russia-Eurasia director at the ultra-orthodox think-tank Chatham House had this to say:

‘Well, I don’t think we should kid ourselves that this is a panacea, that this will win Ukraine the war. The reality is this is a little bit like incremental gains that you sometimes hear about in sports. Every little bit helps. But no single new innovation into the Ukrainian battlefield will do the trick, although they are hoping it will do. They’re hoping that it will break the Russian spine and that they [the Russian military] will fold, collapse and that will have a chain reaction back up into Moscow. That seems relatively unlikely, I have to say. But the Ukrainians are desperate and they will do all that they possibly can with however little that they have. But they are on borrowed time and 2025 looks like being the crunch year, especially bearing in mind the new [U.S.] Donald Trump presidency, which will be transformational and not to Ukraine’s favour by all accounts.’

Nixey went on to say:

‘This is too little and too late. Ukrainians are on a losing trajectory. And this seems very much like a guilt trip on the part of the outgoing [U.S.] democratic administration. Who know they have not done enough [to support Ukraine], who have been overly cautious. And their intention was always not for Ukraine to win the war, but just to keep them in the war. That does seem extraordinarily cruel, but their strategic objective was not to win, but to ensure that it doesn’t conflagrate into a wider war and escalate into something global and something they were involved in themselves. So they have been involved in incrementalism. And I think in the dying days of this [U.S.] administration, it looks as if they are just putting a little bit more into a field to get Ukraine into the best possible position before they see Trump as potentially wrecking it all.’

The escalation of the war in Ukraine has certainly made people more fearful. Fully 80% of UK citizens think that the world is either a little or a lot more dangerous than a year ago.

Vladimir Putin’s alteration of the conditions under which Russia would use nuclear weapons, from being attacked by a country with nuclear weapons to being attacked by a country supported by a third country with nuclear weapons, is regarded as a bluff by 43% and as a genuine threat by 31%.

But Britons are very sceptical about their own country’s use of nukes. A massive 83% of those polled oppose the first use of nuclear weapons, yet this is exactly the policy of the UK government. In all, 67% think that nuclear weapons make the world a more dangerous place. 

And it’s not just in the UK that the Ukraine war hawks are losing the argument. The same is happening in Ukraine itself. Ukrainians wanted to fight until victory, by a majority of 73%, back when the war started. Now a majority, 52%, want a negotiated peace as soon as possible, according to a Gallup opinion poll. In the eastern regions of Ukraine closest to the fighting, over 60% of the people want peace.

Another Gallup poll shows that Ukrainians’ faith in the West is ebbing. Faith in US leadership has collapsed 26% from 66 % in 2022 to 40% now. The figure for those that actively disapprove of US leadership is almost the same, at 37%.

Only just over half now think their country will join NATO in the next ten years, down 14% since 2022. The figures for those who think that Ukraine will never join Nato have nearly doubled over the same period, from 12 to 22%.

All this points to big problems for Starmer. He has adopted pro-Ukrainian rhetoric that is even more extreme than that of the US government. The incoming Trump presidency is likely to be much less enthusiastic; Ukraine is losing the war, public support for Zelensky is eroding, and the UK public is frightened and more sceptical. A sensible politician would change direction, but there is no sign at all that Starmer senses which way the winds of war are blowing.