Party Loyalty and Disinformation, Not Economic Pain: What Makes Europeans Sympathise With Russia

A study of nearly 30,000 respondents across 18 European countries finds that proximity to pro-Kremlin political parties and exposure to disinformation are the strongest predictors of pro-Russian attitudes.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 triggered what researchers describe as the most significant military conflict in Europe since the Second World War. European public opinion has remained broadly pro-Ukrainian, yet measurable segments of the population hold ambivalent or openly pro-Russian positions — a pattern with direct implications for continued military and financial support to Kyiv. A new academic study, as reported by The Conversation, set out to identify what actually drives those positions.

Researchers from several European universities analysed data from two academic surveys conducted in late 2023, covering close to 30,000 respondents in 18 European countries. The surveys asked participants whom they held responsible for the war and which side they wanted to win. Both questions proved strongly correlated, and the geographic variation was striking: whereas backing for a Russian victory was negligible in Poland, it climbed to nearly 20% in Slovakia. The study tested four potential explanations for pro-Kremlin positions: economic interests, ideology, partisan alignment, and disinformation.

Party Loyalty as the Strongest Driver

Of the four, partisan alignment proved the most powerful. Respondents whose preferred party maintained close ties to the Kremlin — assessed by experts through the Chapel Hill Expert Survey — were significantly more likely to favour Russia over Ukraine. Crucially, this did not appear to reflect deep personal conviction about the war. Rather, those voters seemed to be absorbing and repeating their party’s line. The mechanism is top-down: leaders shape the message, supporters internalise it.

Disinformation as the Second Factor

Vulnerability to disinformation emerged as the second most significant factor. Those who turned to social media and messaging applications as their primary source of political news, and who subscribed to theories that national governments engineered the Covid-19 pandemic, were 40% less likely to want Ukraine to win than people who relied on traditional media and rejected such claims. Pro-Russian attitudes, in other words, clustered around the same information ecosystems that amplify conspiratorial thinking more broadly.

Ideology Matters, Economy Does Not

A preference for authoritarian-style leadership and scepticism toward minority rights also correlated with pro-Kremlin sympathy, though less strongly than partisan alignment or disinformation exposure. What did not correlate, contrary to widespread expectation, was economic hardship. Analysts had warned that surging energy prices after the invasion could push public opinion against Ukraine, but the data showed no such effect: people who reported struggling during the energy crisis were no more inclined toward Russia than those who had not.

Political Will as the Decisive Variable

Taken together, the findings suggest that pro-Russian sentiment in Europe is largely a product of the political and informational environment rather than grassroots ideology or personal economic calculation. That has a direct policy implication: where political leaders tolerate or actively promote Kremlin-aligned narratives, public opinion will tend to follow. Reversing that dynamic requires governments willing to treat disinformation as a serious threat and act accordingly. In several EU member states, the opposite is happening. The Czech cabinet under Andrej Babiš has dismantled anti-disinformation infrastructure, according to the Deník Referendum. In Slovakia, Prime Minister Robert Fico has gone further, repeating pro-Russian narratives himself, according to Politico.

The study was conducted by Filip Kostelka, Martín Alberdi, Max Bradley, Toine Fiselier, Alexandra Jabbour, Nahla Mansour, Eleonora Minaeva, Silvia Porciuleanu, and Diana Rafailova.