In the U.S., North West Europe and the rest of the English-speaking world, people overwhelmingly blame Russia for the war in Ukraine. Which you might say is not surprising.
Yet surveys show that public opinion elsewhere is much more divided. As I noted in a Substack article back in June, there are even countries in Europe where a large percentage of people blame the war on the U.S. or NATO.
These include Russia’s traditional ally Serbia, three other Orthodox Christian countries (Greece, Cyprus and Bulgaria) and two countries that are heavily dependent on Russian energy (Slovakia and Hungary).
Okay, but all these countries have relatively close ties to Russia – whether military, religious or economic. What about people in other parts of the world, who could potentially be considered more impartial?
Earlier this year, YouGov surveyed people in 14 Arab countries for the website Arab News. They found that more respondents blamed the U.S. or NATO for the war than blamed Russia.
However, this result comes with an important caveat: a high percentage of respondents – no les than 42% – said they didn’t know.
A recent YouGov poll sheds more light on the matter. People in various countries were asked who’s more to blame for the war: the West or Russia. The chart below shows the top five and bottom five countries by percentage of respondents blaming Russia.
Interestingly, the top five are all Western, while the bottom five are all non-Western. And in the bottom five, opinion was fairly balanced: about as many respondents blamed the West as blamed Russia; or in Indonesia’s case, slightly more.
In the case of Turkey and Egypt, the results could be chalked up to simple, anti-American sentiment. Surveys show that most people in those countries have an unfavourable view of the U.S.
However, the same can’t be said for the other three. A 2010 survey found that a majority of Indians, and a plurality of Indonesians, had a favourable view of the U.S. And a survey carried out last year found that almost half of Saudis deem good relations with the U.S. to be important.
Who’s to blame for the war obviously can’t be decided through opinion polls. My point is that it’s worth reflecting on the marked differences between Western and non-Western countries. How did Indians, Turks and Indonesians come to such vastly different conclusions from Swedes, Brits and Australians?
One answer is that they’re brainwashed by anti-Western propaganda. But this seems difficult to believe. Turks may have an unfavourable view of the U.S., but their country is still in NATO, so they must be exposed to both pro- and anti-Western viewpoints. And there are more Indians in the West than there are in Russia.
Another possible answer is that people in the Third World (which originally just meant non-aligned countries) approach the issue from a different starting point. They don’t assume the West is in the right; and they don’t view every conflict through the prism of World War 2.
A third answer is that most non-Westerners oppose sanctions on Russia for self-interested reasons, and their answers to the question about blame are a way of rationalising that.
When people in ‘neutral’ countries believe the opposite of what Western governments are saying, it’s always worth asking why.
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The ‘non Westerners’ are right.
We are brainwashed.
Russkies told NATO ie the US DoD to stay out of the Uketopia, that shining light of democracy, for 30 years. The Criminal US State built bio labs, engineered coups and has spent 20 years arming and training the Uke military. Imagine if the Russkies did the same in Mexico and then murdered 15.000 Americans along the border whilst blasting US populated areas for 7 years….
The Uke-topia is now the 51rst US State.
We are not enlightened, smart, or informed. We are brainwashed lackey’s of the US fake news and criminal political elite, run by the CIA.
The Serbians are far closer to the truth than some lumpard in Scotland.
Then again, the US did carpet bomb Belgrade to wild applause from London.
We like our stupid. See Rona for more info, or BLiar’s Iraq invasion…….
Re:
We are brainwashed.
In spite of the best attempts by propogandists brains are non-washable
Russkies told NATO ie the US DoD to stay out of the Uketopia,
NATO is not a branch of the US state but rather a defensive alliance of thirty countries, with many more clamouring to join.
Russia has no more right to order Ukraine not to sign up than the US has to order the Russia Federation not to join any defensive alliances it chooses to.
Regardless of that Ukraine has not in fact joined NATO, and it is hundreds of thousands of Russian troops that are currently rampaging around that independent country destroying and killing – not either US or NATO ones.
that shining light of democracy, for 30 years.
In relative terms, and increasingly so as time has gone on, Ukraine is indeed a shining light of democracy in comparison to the concomitantly increasingly totalitarian Russian Federation under President Putin.
And getting rid of this dangerous example to the brutally downtrodden Russian people was one of the main motivations for Putin to order the invasion of 24 February.
The Criminal US State
All states have morally dubious elements and activities, but at least the US government does not shut down all non-state controlled media and routinely arrest, imprison or assassinate journalistic and political opponents (shooting, poisoning or the old ‘accidentally falling out of a window’ routine being the favoured methods).
built bio labs,
As part of its overall financial assistance to Ukraine the US has indeed helped to fund scientific research institutes.
engineered coups
Quite the opposite, the Maidan uprising represented the democratically expressed popular will of the majority of the Ukrainian population and the failure of an attempted pro-Russian anti-democratic coup. President Yanukovich was voted out of office by 328 to zero in the Ukrainian Parliament.
and has spent 20 years arming and training the Uke military.
It is perfectly normal for states to assist allies in that manner.
On the other hand the Russian Federation has spent nearly the entire thirty year period of Ukraine’s post-Soviet existence seeking to undermine its independence and democratic constitution, including through supporting and arming internal resistance and infiltrating Russian military personnel.
Imagine if the Russkies did the same in Mexico and then murdered 15.000 Americans along the border whilst blasting US populated areas for 7 years….
See above, the Donbas uprising was to a large extent engineered by the Russian Federation; of the 14000 deaths caused by both sides in this civil war around 3000 (again inflicted by both sides) were civilians, and by 2021 – the year that President Putin began amassing his invasion force on Ukraine’s border – the conflict had died down so much that only 7 civilians died of direct military activity (again by both sides).
So nothing remotely like the indiscriminate ‘blasting and murdering’ implied by this and similar pro-Russian propaganda / excuses for the invasion.
The Uke-topia is now the 51rst US State.
It is the Russian Federation which has illegally and unilaterally incorporated 5 provinces of Ukraine into its own state.
Not the US.
We are not enlightened, smart, or informed. We are brainwashed lackey’s of the US fake news and criminal political elite, run by the CIA.
See all the above.
The Serbians are far closer to the truth than some lumpard in Scotland.
Nice bit of xenophobic and disablist labelling.
Then again, the US did carpet bomb Belgrade to wild applause from London.
That is a wildly inaccurate account of the relatively brief UN backed NATO operation in Serbia, which in any case many in the UK, US etc opposed.
We like our stupid.
I have no idea what that means.
See Rona for more info
If you mean the extreme overreaction to this flu-like illness and widespread support for illiberal coronavirus lockdowns, mask and vaccine mandates etc I am pretty sure that extended across the world (with honourable exceptions such as Sweden), including the Russian Federation itself.
See, for example, President Putin’s ultra-long tables.
or BLiar’s Iraq invasion…
We are not here to judge and derogatorily label each other, every human being who has ever lived has lied at some stage (and I don’t accept the the WMD excuse of the Iraq invasion was necessarily deliberately deceitful in any case), and again very large numbers in the UK and US opposed this military action.
‘… In spite of the best attempts by propogandists brains are non-washable…’
A claim you then go to great length to disprove.
‘… In spite of the best attempts by propogandists brains are non-washable…’
A claim you then go to great length to disprove.
Ok that was witty
But to take your comment more seriously it also reveals that the term ‘brainwashed’ is used as a technique to dismiss opposition at a personalised level and without having to address any actual content.
“Russia has no more right to order Ukraine not to sign up than the US has to order the Russia Federation not to join any defensive alliances it chooses to.”
You mean like sovereign state Cuba had the right in 1962 to bring Soviet nuclear missiles onto its sovereign territory?
Interesting too how important Ukraine’s sovereignty is but Serbia’s sovereignty back in the 90s not at all. Maybe Serbians spot the hypocrisy.
Re: ‘Interesting too how important Ukraine’s sovereignty is but Serbia’s sovereignty back in the 90s not at all. Maybe Serbians spot the hypocrisy.’
I am opposed to all military action and violence in general and believe in an urgent project of coordinated worldwide disarmament (which really means the abolition of the inherently conflict-prone nation-state system – and to pre-empt a frequent misunderstanding that does not mean their replacement with some sort of World Government).
But in the meantime I believe that we should look at the underlying motivations and agendas of parties involved in armed conflict and where necessary take ideological sides.
In the case of Serbia I believe that this at least partially democratic state had a far better case than the separatists in the militant-Islam dominated province of Kosovo which the UN and NATO backed.
The non-westerners are right when saying “we don’t actually know”. See how around 50% of the answers in those countries is ‘both/neither/don’t know’. The famous saying “The first casualty of every war is truth” is more than applicable today, and people who are not brainwashed naturally understand this.
Russia did not have the right to demand a free independent country had relations only if it approved.
Sontol, your case is weak.
Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya. Lets face it the USA like a nice little war somewhere else so they can sell lots of nice shiny bombs. Usually somewhere with oil reserves…
US Military-Congressional-Industrial Complex.
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So the West doesn’t think the West is to blame. I am shocked.
I don’t understand why he is a climate nutter, but on his core competency wars, he is still quite good. https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/stop-worrying-and-love-the-bomb?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
On the topic of the dirty bomb (or sea mine as is being suggested) of Ukraine, which of course the West is calling false, we don’t hear that Russia laid out at least some of the evidence that they had during the phone calls.
Of course it was all denied but if the evidence is credible then that should act as a deterrent, despite all the denials, because it will be made public if the bomb is used.
My conclusion is that if we don’t get a dirty bomb then the Russians were right.
I notice that the Ukrainians have now reverted to Himars attacks on the Nova Kakhovka dam, but of course it would be wrong to draw conclusions from that.
‘In the case of Turkey and Egypt, the results could be chalked up to simple, anti-American sentiment.’
And would it be fair to say the top five Western results could be chalked up to simple, anti-Russian sentiment, having been brainwashed with suspicion, fear and contempt for Russia and its people for 70 years?
…I thought exactly the same. Also calling what the West is doing ‘sanctions’? They aren’t really, are they?….It’s all out economic war on the people of Russia…I suspect a lot of countries get that…..
Seriously, what’s the point of this? There’s currently a war in eastern Ukraine which started with a Russian invasion with the intent to annex another large chunk of the aforementioned country. That’s something called a war of conquest and outside of the phantasy universe of the lunatic (called so by a German general) Woodrow Wilson, these do exist, have always existed and will continue to exist. Perfectly predictably, both sides blame each other and this pretty pointless blaming is duly repeated by their respective adherents. At some point in time, this war will be over. If somebody won it, the winning party will – also perfectly traditional – blame the losing party for everything bad which ever happened under the sun, including climate change and Boris Johnsons apparently renewed bid for creating yet more chaos in the UK and – that’s the more important part – the winning party will try to recover its war cost plus a healthy dividend from its erstwhile opponent. Until this has happened, blaming is just part of the war propanda of both sides.
…it didn’t ‘start’ with a Russian invasion…..
The war started with an internal civil war in the east of Ukraine going back many years.
There was an opportunity in the late 2010’s for neutral countries (UN) to supervise polls in eastern Ukraine regarding the future of these regions — instead the world ignored the unfolding increase in tensions following non-supervised polls being ignored by Ukraine.
The war escalated with the breach of the Minsk Agreement around 2 years ago. Again, the world ignored these significantly increased tensions.
By no means was Russia right to invade and they’ve made a bad situation far worse — but to suggest that they simply invaded a peaceful country is glossing over important details.
You are severly mistaken! This war started when Russia took (most of) present day Ukraine from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth during the course of the Polish partitions at the end of the 18th century! … … The war I was writing about started with the Russian invasion in February. I never claimed the history of the region or of mankind in general started on that date.
This irritating and irrelevant question of who’s is right here ought to be shot. War is what happens when the government of one country has a terminal fallout regarding an issue of right or wrong (perhaps better: legitimate and illegitimate) with the government of another country and thus decides to settle the issue by force. Right then ends up largely suspended until this has been accomplished in some way. The mythical world of eternal peace the charta of the United Nations tried to erect has never materialized itself outside of the block of (mostly) European countries militarily dominated by the USA. It’s time to bury this nonsense.
Anyone who has bothered to research the history will know this war was started by America and its allies. Russia is in the right!
..what I do know is that if maintaining public support for the proxy war….requires non-stop PR and massive propaganda from the MSM…. Immense numbers of pro-Ukrainian trolling operations on social platforms….the banning of all Russian media…and all of these things intensified and amplified by the Government and their agencies….…and you still find that people don’t trust or believe you, and seek other, more independent information sites……
…..and when all the polls show that most people want you to de-escalate and find a resolution…
You need to start listening…..
It’s unfortunately completely impossible to start a war without being party to it. Putin’s propaganda could really be improved in this respect. And the questions who’s right is entirely immaterial. As in all wars, all parties are convinced they’re right, ie, that their reasons for going to war justified doing so.
LOL! I beg to differ ..USA/NATO has managed quite well up to now in pretending that they are not taking part in a war against Russia!!?
it would be funny if it wasn’t so idiotic……
But black is really the new white! claims are generally pointless and just weaken the position of the people making them. Putin asking people to support his honourable position might succeed if he had any arguments for that. But trying to fool them into doing so by literally claiming that left is right and up is down just exposes his disingenuity.
You mean anyone else’s claims except yours!? LOL…!!
yes black is white when America keeps claiming it’s not at war with Russia…especially $54 billion dollars later…..…!!
The people of the Donbass have genuine grievances…the fact you don’t want to acknowledge them says more about you than it does anyone else….
Pretty much all of mankind is always convinced to have just grievances. Insofar applicable, that’s an issue to be settled in court. When inapplicable, they’re free to make their case with whatever deity they happen to believe in.
Nord Stream 2 time line
2015 January Gazprom announces Nord Stream 2
2016 January Initial planning and Construction of Nord Stream 2 starts
2017 April Poland tries to block Nord Stream 2
2018 January Germany approves Nord Stream 2 in its waters and where it makes
landfall
2018 May Construction of the landfall starts at Greifswald Germany
2019 January US ambassador in Germany, tries to stop the project threatening sanctions.
2019 April EU gas pipeline amendment regulations are passed, making
Nord Stream 2 pointless, but construction now over half complete,
continues
2019 December US Senators warn of more sanctions if construction continues
2020 May German energy regulator refused an exception from new rules that
require Nord Stream 2 to separate gas ownership from transmission.
2021 June Putin announces first string of Nord Stream 2 completed
2021 August Dusseldorf court upholds EU gas pipeline amendment regulations making
Nord Stream 2 pointless
2021 September Putin announces second string of Nord Stream 2 completed, total cost of
construction around £10 billion
2021 October Russia starts building up troops on Ukraine border threatening war
2021 November Russia has over 100,000 troops on the border
2021 November German regulator suspends regulation of Nord Stream 2
and EU gas prices rises 17%
2022 February On 22.02.2022 German Chancellor Olaf Scholz suspends certification
of Nord Stream 2
2022 February On 24.02.2022 Russia invades Ukraine
If Nord Stream 2 came on line the possible winners and losers would be:
The winners
1) The Russians (no need for high transit fees through the Ukraine and no chance of
gas being siphoned off en-route)
2) The European population (cheaper gas prices)
The losers
1) USA (less demand for its LNG from fracking)
2) Quatar (less demand for its LNG)
3) Ukraine (less transit fees)
Whether there is a connection between Nord Stream 2 and the war in Ukraine is unknown to me. But there does seem to be a bit of a coincidence.
The USA also loses out from Nord Stream 2 because it is fearful of closer relations between Western Europe (particularly Germany) and Russia. Surely much more important than lost sales of LNG.
Not mentioned in the article, but South America is also wisely standing on the sidelines, as a whole. Not much WWII involvement plus decades (if not centuries) of US imperial interference does indeed grant a different perspective. It’s a challenge to find anyone in South America who cares very much about Ukraine versus Russia, beyond the ultra-rich with their Miami apartments and US-imported luxury opinions.
I think they’re right. All of these attempts to frame this as an unprovoked act of aggression are only telling half the story. It’s intellectually dishonest to pretend otherwise I think. I’ll probably get reprimanded now by Ian Rons. But it would be interesting to hear how he thought such a large proportion of the world’s population had got it so wrong. I expect the explanation would probably have something to do with’ Russian propaganda’ or something.
To use that Bismarck quote again: Vox populi, vox Rindvieh. No matter what the issue happens to be, most of the world’s population will always get it wrong to varying degrees.
[vox populi, Latin for the voice of the people, Rindvieh, German word whose actual meaning is cattle but is usually used to denote an obtuse person]
They can’t help themselves….…and as if by magic pictures are now coming out of Haiti of US marines taking over the airport…..
Another country which the USA has ‘democratised and helped’ by imposing pro-American Governments and fomenting civil unrest……just like Iran, Cuba, Hong Kong and Taiwan…while the people of Haiti themselves are protesting for outside intervention to cease…
Unfortunately these people have no one to stand up for them….
These results suggest BBC world service and our Embassies are failing in their purposes.
Opinion polls are not what all people believe. They are a carefully chosen sample fed leading questions which have limited responses.
As Russia moved their army into Ukraine and not vice versa the ‘blame ‘ lies with Putin. In the 21st Century, in a country ruled by adults, there is no provocation strong enough for one nation to invade another.