More than 50% of Slovaks blame Ukraine and the West for Russian aggression — study
In Slovakia, more than half of the population believes that Kyiv or the West are responsible for Russia invading Ukraine in 2022. Only 41% point to Moscow as the guilty party, according to the findings of the Globsec Trends 2024 study published on May 2.
Slovak news agency aktuality.sk reports that the research, conducted by the Focus agency throughout February and March, involved 1,000 respondents. The findings show that 41% of Slovaks think Russia is to blame for the war; 20% assign responsibility to Ukraine, and another 31% accuse the West of supposedly "provoking Russia."
Dominika Hajdu from the Globsec Center for Resilience and Democracy asserts that about 25% of Slovaks have "strong pro-Russian sentiments." She added that a portion of the society will never blame Russia for the war against Ukraine.
"Unfortunately, the rest have believed the pro-Kremlin disinformation that claims that the West or Ukraine is to blame for the war, and its spread has been facilitated by a broad range of domestic players—from self-proclaimed alternative media to political actors," said Hajdu.
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In 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine, more than half of Slovaks blamed the Russians for the war: 51% of Slovaks believed Russia was responsible for the conflict at the time, compared to 40% in 2023. Similarly, only 16% of the Slovak population considered Ukraine responsible for the war just after it broke out.
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