Majority of Americans support placing additional economic sanctions on Russia

Washington, DC, February 24, 2022 – A new Reuters/Ipsos poll, completed Wednesday, February 23, 2022, finds that only a third of Americans approve of the way Joe Biden has been handling the issues with Ukraine (34%) and Russia (32%). It also found that 77% are very or somewhat concerned about the risk of Russia invading Ukraine, a reality as of this morning when Russia initiated a series of strikes in various Ukrainian cities. While two-thirds (66%) of Americans believe the U.S. cannot afford to take military action in Ukraine given the current economic climate, 71% believe doing nothing will encourage Russia to take military action elsewhere in Europe and Asia. However, most Americans (65%) also believe that taking military action in Ukraine would encourage attacks on the United States and the West. Consequently, only 2 out of 5 (38%) Americans support sending troops to Ukraine to help defend them from a Russian invasion, and only 34% support using air strikes to help the Ukrainian army. Most Americans (72%) believe the United States should continue its diplomatic efforts with Russia and place additional economic sanctions against Russia (69%). Finally, when asked who they believe is most to blame for the current situation between Russia and Ukraine, half of Americans (50%) say it is Russian President Vladimir Putin.

See Reuters story for more details.

About the Study

These are some of the findings of an Ipsos poll conducted between February 22-23, 2022. For this survey, a sample of 1,004 Americans age 18+ from the continental U.S., Alaska, and Hawaii were interviewed online in English. The sample includes 420 Democrats, 394 Republicans, and 131 independents. Weighting was then employed to balance demographics to ensure that the sample's composition reflects that of the adult population according to Census data and to provide results intended to approximate the sample universe. The precision of Ipsos online polls is measured using a credibility interval. In this case, the poll is accurate to within ± 3.8 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, had all Americans been polled. The credibility interval will be wider among subsets of the population. All sample surveys and polls may be subject to other sources of error, including but not limited to coverage error and measurement error. The poll also has a credibility interval of ± 5.9 percentage points for Democrats, ± 6.0 percentage points for Republicans, and ± 10.5 percentage points for independents.  

For more information on this news release, please contact:

Chris Jackson
Senior Vice President, US
Public Affairs
+1 202 420-2025
[email protected]

Annaleise Lohr
Director, US
Public Affairs
[email protected]

About Ipsos

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