Nearly half of Americans say Washington should push Ukraine to reach peace deal with Russia: poll

About half of Americans (47 percent) say that Ukraine should be pushed into a peace agreement with Russia as soon as possible, according to survey results released on Monday.

An Ipsos poll conducted by The Chicago Council on Global Affairs found that the percentage of Americans who say the U.S. should urge Ukraine to settle, in part so that costs will lessen for American households, had increased from 38 percent in July to 47 percent in November.

A similar proportion (48 percent) said in the survey taken Nov. 18-20 that the U.S. should support Ukraine “for as long as it takes,” despite potential costs to American citizens. That percentage has decreased by 10 points since July.

The Ipsos poll, conducted by KnowledgePanel on a sample of 1,030 adults from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, found strong partisan divisions on the question of whether Ukraine should be pushed to settle.

Sixty-one percent of Democrats say that the U.S. should continue supporting Ukraine “for as long as it takes,” compared to just a third of Republicans who said the same.

Both parties’ opinions have changed since July, when 69 percent of Democrats and half of Republicans said that the U.S. should maintain its support of Ukraine.

However, majorities of Americans still back assistance efforts for Ukraine, with two-thirds supporting arms supplies and economic aid for the country and three-quarters supporting acceptance of Ukrainian refugees and sanctions on Russia.

The November poll, which has a margin of error of 3 percentage points, found indicators that news sources could affect Americans’ views on whether and for how long to continue supporting Ukraine.

Twenty-six percent of those who trust Fox News the most for information on the war say that they believe Ukraine has an advantage over Russia, while higher percentages of those who most trust MSNBC (48 percent), NBC (36 percent), public television (33 percent) and CNN (32 percent) say the same.