The share of Ukrainians who say they are willing to endure the war for as long as it takes has risen to 61%, up from a low of 48% in April, according to a poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) conducted July 20-August 3 among 974 respondents in government-controlled territory.

The rebound comes even as expectations of a swift end to the fighting remain low. Only 5% of respondents expect the war to end as soon as summer 2026, and a further 15% expect it to end in the autumn or winter of 2026; 15% expect it to end in the first half of 2027, and 45% expect it to run into the second half of 2027 or later, with the remaining 19% offering no firm view — leaving a clear majority bracing for the conflict to run well beyond this year.

On the terms of any eventual settlement, the poll found 60% of Ukrainians consider it completely unacceptable to withdraw troops from Donbas at Russia's demand in exchange for US and European security guarantees; 27% called it a painful but acceptable trade-off, and just 5% said they would readily agree to it. A separate, identically-sized 60% of respondents said they would accept freezing the war along the current front line in exchange for security guarantees — a combination that suggests resistance is now aimed less at any pause in the fighting than at a settlement that formally signs away land.

The poll also points to a striking degree of confidence in Ukraine's ability to keep fighting despite battlefield pressure: 77% of respondents said that while Russia is advancing, it is doing so very slowly and at enormous cost, and that Ukraine remains capable of mounting effective resistance. Only 12% said further resistance was futile.

Asked how much longer they personally were prepared to endure the war, 61% said for as long as necessary, 20% said for another several months to half a year, and 5% said for another year — a breakdown that, taken together with the timeline question, suggests most Ukrainians have made peace with a long war rather than expecting an imminent end to it.

The swing back toward endurance follows a spring in which war fatigue was laid bare by an anti-conscription riot in Lviv and Zelenskiy's own approval ratings slid through the summer, underlining how volatile Ukrainian public opinion on the war has become as it grinds into a fifth calendar year with no ceasefire in sight.