Trump may well be banking everything on Putin, but the Americans aren’t behind him. Not even his own voters.

‘Which do you sympathise with more, Russia or Ukraine?’, asked pollsters organised by the American editorial team of The Economist and YouGov America, and 66 per cent of registered voters selected for the survey sample said: Ukraine. Russia has 3 per cent of sympathisers. Looking at party affiliations, 82 per cent of Democratic voters support Ukraine, whilst 1 per cent support Russia. Among Republicans, the percentages are lower, but 52 per cent still support Ukraine, compared with 4 per cent for Russia. This means that despite the anti-Ukrainian disinformation campaigns, and despite the Trump administration’s anti-Ukrainian message, Americans continue to side with Ukraine – even voters from the president’s own party.

The responses to the question: ‘Who does Donald Trump side with more, Ukraine or Russia?’, reveal a few more nuances, which relate to political affiliation and also to the information available. Forty-five per cent of registered voters say Trump favours Russia, whilst 16 per cent say he favours Ukraine: amongst Democratic voters, 72 per cent of respondents believe Trump is aligned with Moscow; amongst Republican voters, confusion reigns: 31 per cent say Trump sympathises with Ukraine, whilst 14 per cent say he sympathises with Russia. Another notable detail is that, for 76 per cent of Republican voters, Russia is either an enemy or a non-friend, while Ukraine is an ally or a friend for 55 per cent of them (28 per cent say it is an enemy or a non-friend). Vladimir Putin is not well regarded among Trump’s party supporters (though, unfortunately, he is very well regarded by Trump himself), with 78 per cent viewing him unfavourably. Nor are they taken in by the president’s claims that Ukraine does not want peace, although they are more divided on this issue than Democrats: 37 per cent of them believe that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wants peace, whilst 11 per cent believe Putin does.