Russian Public Is Ready to End War but Skeptical of Concessions, Analysis Finds

An analysis made this week of Russian attitudes toward a possible cease-fire with Ukraine suggests that the Russian public is ready to end the war but skeptical of any concessions Moscow may have to make.

Combined with new polling in Ukraine, the analysis by a Massachusetts-based company, FilterLabs, shows how difficult selling the terms of a U.S.-brokered peace settlement will be to both the Russian and Ukrainian public.

While the two countries are war-weary, there is little appetite for major concessions to either government’s war aims — such as Russia’s demands for territorial concessions or Ukraine’s desire to integrate with the West.

“As with all things Ukraine/Russia-related, the picture is complicated, though from the borderlands to the big cities, one through line exists: Russians feel it’s time to end the war, but on Russia’s terms,” the company found in its analysis.

In a phone call with President Trump on Wednesday, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, agreed to pause attacks on energy targets as long as Russia did the same. The Trump administration sees the limited agreement as a step to a broader cease-fire.

FilterLabs, which scrapes social media and internet posts to measure public sentiment in Russia and other parts of the world, has been analyzing the shifts in Russian attitudes toward the war since President Vladimir V. Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The new analysis, written on Wednesday, focused on internet posts in recent days from Russia’s two largest cities, Moscow and St. Petersburg, and Russian regions that border Ukraine.

“Our analysis shows that skepticism about a potential cease-fire agreement was widespread, as was general weariness with the war,” the company said.

The FilterLabs work showed the public there reacting negatively to the news that the United States had resumed intelligence sharing and arms sales to Ukraine. While a month ago sentiment in Russia toward Mr. Trump was rising, recent commentators were more skeptical.

“You can’t trust the Americans, including Trump,” one Russian wrote in a Telegram post that was reviewed by FilterLabs. “Under the talk of peace, they have already resumed arms supplies. Their words are a complete deception. We are winning and we don’t need any truces.”

Jonathan Teubner, chief executive of FilterLabs, said skepticism toward the United States was behind much of the Russian public’s attitudes.

“Many in Russia are reading the proposal as another way for America and the West to take advantage of Russia,” he said. “This underlying skepticism likely gives Putin the ability to reject a cease-fire that many people want.”

Based on FilterLabs’ analysis, a minority of Russians want to keep fighting until Mr. Zelensky is overthrown.

“Why do we need a truce if we are crushing the Ukrainian Armed Forces on all fronts?” one person wrote on Telegram. “So that during this time the enemy can lick its wounds and strike with renewed vigor? Only Kyiv’s capitulation will satisfy us!”

Polling in Ukraine has also shown skepticism about ceding territory or making large concessions to Moscow. Russia has demanded that Ukraine withdraw its forces from the Ukrainian provinces that Moscow annexed after its invasion: Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. The annexation was broadly denounced at the time as illegitimate by the West.

A poll conducted in late February and early March by the Razumkov Center, a research institute in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, found that 78 percent of respondents opposed the withdrawal of forces from the contested regions.

An even larger majority opposed recognizing the illegal Russian annexation. Only a small minority, 8 percent, favored withdrawal from the regions, the poll found.

The survey also showed a strong majority were against lifting Western sanctions on Moscow. Opinions on whether Ukraine should become a neutral state, a key demand of the Russians, were more divided, with 56 percent opposing neutrality and 22 percent supporting it.