Over 30% of Germans Believe West Should Push Kiev Into Peace Talks With Moscow: Poll

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Almost a third of Germans believe that the West needs to convince Kiev to start negotiations with Moscow on a ceasefire, a poll conducted by the sociological company YouGov for the newspaper Welt am Sonntag showed on Saturday.

According to the survey, 31% of the respondents believe that Western states should pressure Ukraine into peace talks, while 50% of the survey participants believe that only the Ukrainian government should make the decision to start negotiations with Russia.

About 31% of Germans support Ukraine's eventual accession to the EU and NATO after the conclusion of the peace agreement. Another 13% believe that Ukraine should only join the EU, and 10% think that accession to NATO is enough, the survey showed. At the same time 26% of respondents consider Ukraine's accession to NATO and EU as unnecessary, the poll added.

According to YouGov, 19% of the survey participants were undecided as to the answers to the questions they were asked.

The survey was conducted in from December 16 - 21 with 2,075 people participating.

On February 24, Russia started its special military operation in Ukraine in response to calls for help from the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics. Russian and Ukrainian delegations have engaged in several rounds of peace talks since then, but the negotiations ultimately reached an impasse.

Earlier this year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy refused to negotiate with Russia as long as President Vladimir Putin remains in office, but changed his stance later and laid out conditions for starting dialogue in a video statement released on November 8, shortly after reports emerged in US media that the Biden administration was privately encouraging Kiev to demonstrate its readiness to negotiate with Moscow.

The Kremlin has emphasized that Putin has always been and continues to remain open to negotiations on Ukraine, as evident from his attempts to initiate dialogue with the US, NATO and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) even before the start of hostilities. Moscow has expressed agreement with US statements that the resolution of the Ukraine crisis must be based on a fair and long-term peace, but at the same time, Moscow has said that it sees no prospects yet for negotiations.