Belarusians don't want to fight in Ukraine but not against union with Russia

For example, while in 2018 on average 60% of Belarusians were in favor of living in a union with Russia, in 2019 the number of those willing to do so fell to 50%, and in 2020 it fell to 45.

Then the mood of the people changed, but from September 2022 to May 2023 it remained unchanged: despite the clear position on the invasion of Belarusian troops in Ukraine, today about 53.5% of Belarusians are in favor of living in union with Russia.

"This is the challenge," says the sociologist. "Now it's important for us to understand: is this temporary, or will the attitudes of Belarusians to Russia improve? Or is the society saturated with pro-Russian orientation? Or has the Russian narrative already reached its limits in Belarus?

If we take another formulation of the question, when we asked which of the options of unification of Belarus and Russia you prefer, such an option as joining the Russian Federation as a subject in the legal sense has always attracted only 5% of the citizens of our country. In May, the figure was 8.7%. I would like to draw your attention to the fact that these are the results of telephone polls, which provide truly representative data, taking into account the rural population, which has a certain political and geopolitical position."