Ukraine conflict: The Germans consider Putin dangerous but do not want a confrontation

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The majority of Germans consider Russia's president to be dangerous

Photo: Alexei Druzhinin / dpa

Due to massive Russian troop movements near the Ukrainian border, the West is concerned that Moscow could launch an invasion of the neighboring country.

The Kremlin denies plans in this regard, but demands from NATO, among other things, that expansion and Ukraine's accession to the alliance be ruled out.

There are different signals from the federal government as to which course should be pursued towards Russia.

While the FDP and the Greens are pushing for toughness, other voices are coming from the SPD.

A survey by the opinion research institute Civey for SPIEGEL now shows that the majority of Germans are against a confrontational approach: 39 percent of those surveyed stated that they were in favor of very cooperative (28) or somewhat cooperative (11) behavior by the federal government towards Russia .

22 percent, on the other hand, support a rather or very confrontational approach.

It is striking that the proportion of those who did not want to make a decision and answered "partially/partially" is quite large at almost a third of the respondents.

A good 5,000 participants were surveyed for the current, representative survey between January 14th and 16th.

Read the background to the Civey methodology here.

Green voters most likely to favor confrontation

Differences become clear when breaking down East and West.

While 35 percent of respondents in the west favor a cooperative approach, more than half do so in the east.

Looking at the supporters of the individual parties, it becomes clear that the potential voters of the Greens are most likely to favor confrontational behavior by the federal government towards Russia.

Among sympathizers of all other parties - with the exception of the AfD - approval is around the 20 percent mark.

Around half of Germans see Putin as a threat to Germany.

Once again there is a difference between East and West: In the new federal states, only one in three thinks that Russia poses a threat to Germany.

Again, it is the Green Party supporters who stand out and are the most likely to perceive Russia as dangerous.

According to the survey, a majority of Germans also consider it likely that Russian troops will invade Ukraine.

Only just under one in four believes that an attack by Russia is less likely or not at all likely.

One in five respondents is unsure about this question.

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