The head of the Belarusian Analytical Workshop, professor

Andrei Vardomatsky

, spoke about the reaction of Belarusians to the war, which was different from the reaction of Ukrainians and Russians.

According to him, a phenomenon known as "consolidation around the flag" — a sharp increase in support for the political leadership — took place in both Russia and Ukraine.

The popularity ratings of both

Vladimir Zelensky

and

Vladimir Putin

are skyrocketing, exceeding 80%.

At the same time, according to Vardomatsky, there was a consolidation in Belarus around the unwillingness of the Belarusian army to participate in the war.

86% of respondents are against his participation in the war.

But this idea is by no means the main idea of ​​the Belarusian government, and

Alexander Lukashenko

's popularity in Belarus is not as high as that of the leaders of Ukraine and Russia in their countries, the Belarusian sociologist explained.

He called this situation "consolidation without a flag".

Vardomatsky also said that the total popularity of the opposition leaders is higher than the popularity of Lukashenka.

The head of the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS)

Uladzimir Paniota

devoted his speech to a retrospective of Ukrainian-Russian relations since 2014.

According to Paniot, until 2014,

Putin

was more popular in Ukraine than any Ukrainian politician.

After the seizure of Crimea and the war in Donbass, the popularity of the Russian leader in Ukraine collapsed.

Attitude of Ukrainians towards Putin

Until 2014, a good attitude towards Russia was characteristic of the vast majority of citizens in Ukraine.

After 2014, the situation changed dramatically in both Ukraine and Russia.

Percentage of positive attitude of Ukrainians towards Russia (according to KMIS) and Russians towards Ukraine (according to Lyavad Center)

Paniota showed that before the annexation of Crimea, the idea of ​​joining NATO was not very popular in Ukraine.

The situation changed after 2014, after the start of this year's full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, the share of supporters of joining NATO increased even more.

Attitude of Ukrainians to Ukraine's accession to NATO

"It is not true that Putin attacked Ukraine because Ukraine wanted to join NATO.

In fact, on the contrary, Ukraine wants to join NATO because Putin attacked it," noted Professor Paniota.

In his speech, the scientific director of the Russian Lyavada Center

, Lev Hudkov

, said that the current war was the result of the restoration of totalitarian structures in the Russian Federation.

He showed how Stalin's popularity and trust in the army and special services grew simultaneously in Russia from the beginning of the zero years.

Hudkov also showed that the perception of Ukraine's membership in NATO as a threat to Russia actually strengthened in the Russian Federation at the beginning of the century.

Alexey Levinson

, a colleague of Gudkov, head of the social and cultural research department of the Lyavad Center ,

spoke about a methodological experiment, with the help of which researchers refuted a number of common ideas about sociological research in non-free countries, such as Russia.

According to Levinson, the experiment did not confirm the opinion that respondents who do not approve of the government's policy refuse to participate in surveys more often, and that the data of public opinion polls characterize only those who are ready to answer the questions of sociologists.

Ukrainian sociologist

Ina Valasevich

from the Infosapiens center, speaking about the current attitude of Ukrainians towards Belarusians, noted that it is much better than towards Russians.

According to her, only a third of Ukrainians now treat Belarusians badly.

"But Belarus is our enemy," said the Ukrainian sociologist.

You can watch the speeches of sociologists on Youtube.