Peace in exchange for land? For many Ukrainians, it's too painful to contemplate

By Olena Harmash

KYIV (Reuters) - Vitali Klitschko, the former heavyweight boxer who is now mayor of Kyiv, ventured last month into hazardous political territory: he delicately suggested in an interview that Ukraine might need to cede land to end its battle against Russia.

After a flood of angry online comments, he walked back his comments, saying on Facebook that "territorial concessions contradict our national interests and we must fight against their implementation until the last".

U.S. President Donald Trump and his negotiators believe the only route to ending the Russian war in Ukraine is for Kyiv to acknowledge in some form that it is not getting back the Ukrainian land Moscow's troops have taken since invading.

But the episode with Klitschko -- along with opinion polling shared exclusively with Reuters -- indicates that, more than three years into the war, most Ukrainians are not willing to cede territory to Russia in exchange for a ceasefire deal.

The state of public opinion helps explain why Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who is expected to run for re-election, has resisted Trump's pressure to cede territory in ceasefire negotiations.

A poll from Gradus Research exclusively shared with Reuters showed that almost three-quarters of the population did not see territorial concessions as a way to end the war.

"Most respondents believe that Russia's main goal in the war ... is to establish full control over our country," Gradus said in a research note. "Ukrainian territorial concessions are not perceived as a compromise or a guarantee of peace - on the contrary, they can only strengthen the aggressor."

Russia has denied seeking control of Ukraine, but its forces headed directly to Kyiv in their full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 before Ukrainian troops pushed them back from the capital to their current positions in the south and east.

The Ukrainian poll conducted this week indicated that 40% of respondents believed that even in the case of concessions, peace would be only temporary and unsustainable. Another 31% thought that concessions would not lead to peace at all, Gradus said.

Russia now de facto controls about 20% of Ukrainian territory, including the Crimean peninsula that it seized and unilaterally annexed in 2014 as well as large parts of four other regions of east and southeast Ukraine.

According to U.S. negotiators, many of Ukraine's European allies, and some Ukrainians when speaking in private, say Ukraine will have to acknowledge loss of territory to end the war.

Ukrainians are exhausted and up against a bigger and stronger enemy. Their attempts to push Russia back on the battlefield have failed since the first year of the war, and their Western partners have not given them enough military aid for it to achieve a decisive victory.

Zelenskiy has acknowledged that Ukraine cannot regain its territories by military force but notes that formally ceding land would run counter to the country's constitution.

Opposition to giving up land has softened as the war has ground on. Data from the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), showed that in March about 39% supported territorial concessions, compared with just 10% in May 2022.

Yet it also found that in March 50% of Ukrainians rejected the idea of giving up any land to Russia, ever, down from 51% in December.

Data from another pollster - Razumkov Centre -- from a February-March poll showed nearly 82% of respondents were against any formal recognition of the occupied territories.

"The definition of territorial concessions that more than half of the population might accept with a heavy heart is a de facto recognition of the occupation without de-jure recognition," said Anton Hrushetskyi from KIIS, adding that the country would have to receive security guarantees in exchange.

Apart from Klitschko's short-lived intervention, no prominent figures in Ukrainian politics or public life are trying to promote a national conversation about the need to acknowledge the loss of territory.

Evhen Mahda, a political analyst in Kyiv, said a dialogue between the country's leadership and society about giving up land was needed to ensure broad acceptance of a potential deal.

"Unfortunately, we have to be realistic," Mahda said, about the terms of a deal to end the war, while noting that many Ukrainians still perceive discussions about a compromise on territory as a betrayal.

(Additional reporting by Sergiy Karazy; editing by Philippa Fletcher)