Many Africans against Russia's invasion of Ukraine - poll

Ahead of the African Peace Initiative visit to Kyiv and Moscow, the upcoming Russia/Africa meetings in St. Petersburg and the BRICS Summit in South Africa in August, international research company Ipsos polled African citizens on their attitudes towards Russia, Ukraine and the controversial position on the war taken by some African governments.

A majority felt that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was against the principles of international law and that Russian forces should withdraw from Ukraine.

These were the most important findings in a random study among individuals 18 years old and older, who expressed an interest in news and politics in South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, Uganda, and Zambia.

The study, Ipsos says, was completed on CATI (Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing) from between May 31 to June 16, 2023

"Random lists of mobile telephone numbers were drawn, using relevant prefixes and the number of digits used in each country. The computer chose the numbers to be phoned from these lists randomly," said Ipsos.

"Trained and experienced CATI interviewers completed all interviews. The number of interviews conducted was 1,000 in each of South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria and 500 each in Senegal, Uganda and Zambia."

In conducting the polling, several statements were read out to each respondent, and they then had to indicate whether they strongly disagreed, disagreed, neither disagreed, not agreed, agreed, or strongly agreed with each of the statements.

A minority agreed with the statements looking at the war from the Russian point of view – and in none of the six countries did a majority choose to agree with any of the three statements.

However, South Africans were split down the middle in virtually equal proportions regarding all three opinions.

Africans expressed strong feelings that their continent should stay nonaligned or neutral in this conflict and Kenyans, especially, felt that Africa should not take sides in the war.

A smaller proportion of Nigerians, however, thought quite strongly that Africa could not afford to remain neutral in the war and should support Ukraine.

A large majority agreed that the war was not in Africa’s best interest, as it had detrimental effects on food supply and energy costs at home.

Others also agreed that “having lived through colonialism, conflict and forced occupations, Africa should not support any country in their attempts to illegally annex parts of another nation.

However, Africans are not immune to regretting the devastation of war and they feel that both Russians and Ukrainians are war victims.

Most Africans took a neutral stance when asked about whether their own government should support Russia or Ukraine.

"The majority maintained that the ideal outcome would be somewhere in the middle of the two extremes. It is important to observe that larger proportions of all seven countries thought support for Ukraine rather than for Russia was in the best interest of their countries," read a statement.