https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/04/17/russia-ukraine-trump-poll-enemy/
https://web.archive.org/web/20250417175005/https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/04/17/russia-ukraine-trump-poll-enemy/
Americans are now split on whether Russia is an ‘enemy,’ poll finds
As President Donald Trump presses for a deal to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, attitudes among Americans, especially Republicans, are shifting.
April 17, 2025 at 12:20 p.m. EDT
By Rachel Pannett and Mikhail Klimentov
The share of Americans who consider Russia an “enemy” has fallen to its lowest point since it began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, according to a poll published Thursday by the Pew Research center. The shift owes largely to evolving views among Republicans amid stark changes in U.S. policy and diplomacy toward Russia and Ukraine under President Donald Trump.
The survey found the share of Americans who said Russia was an “enemy” had fallen to 50 percent, from 61 percent in April 2024 and 70 percent in March 2022, just after the invasion began.
The softening in attitudes toward Russia was far sharper among Republican voters, with 40 percent saying Russia was an enemy, down from 58 percent last year and 69 percent in March 2022. Thirty-four percent of Americans overall now describe Russia as a competitor of the United States, while just 9 percent said it was a partner.
"As I mentioned before, exposure to true information does not matter anymore. A person who is demoralized is unable to assess true information. The facts tell him nothing, even if I shower him with information, with authentic proof, with documents and pictures ... he will refuse to believe it ... That's the tragedy of the situation of demoralization." - Yuri Bezmenov, KGB, 1983
"There is nothing more tragic than to see an individual whose heart is filled with hate. He comes to the point that he becomes a pathological case. For the person who hates, you can stand up and see a person and that person can be beautiful, and you will call them ugly. For the person who hates, the beautiful becomes ugly and the ugly becomes beautiful. For the person who hates, the good becomes bad and the bad becomes good. For the person who hates, the true becomes false and the false becomes true. That's what hate does. You can't see right. The symbol of objectivity is lost." - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. visiting Detroit Michigan USA. November 1957.