Ukraine poll finds 80% back refinery strikes despite threatened U.S. support cuts

In results published on October 28, 2026, the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, or KIIS, reported that 80% of respondents favored continuing refinery strikes even if the United States stopped or limited support. Eleven percent favored stopping the attacks, while 8% were undecided. Interviews ran from October 16 through October 25, making this a picture of opinion during that period, not a live measurement of attitudes after publication.⁠13

The finding is politically clear, but narrower than a declaration that Ukrainians would reject American help at any cost. Respondents were asked to choose between continuing the campaign despite threatened restrictions and accepting unilateral Ukrainian restraint while Russian attacks could continue. It is that unequal bargain—not every possible energy agreement—that the majority rejected.⁠13

The institute’s English-language questionnaire set out the choice explicitly:

That wording matters because it makes the absence of Russian commitments part of the decision. Respondents were not simply asked whether refinery attacks were desirable, nor whether they would support an enforceable arrangement protecting both countries’ energy infrastructure. The poll does not establish how they would answer that different question. Interviewers were instructed to randomize the order of the answer statements, rather than consistently presenting one choice first.⁠13

The smaller numbers also deserve to be read accurately. The published shares total 99%, which KIIS explains can happen when results are rounded to whole numbers; the undecided share remains 8%, not a recalculated 9%. The Kyiv Independent’s October 28 report described the minority position as pausing attacks, while the original KIIS English release says stopping them. Neither wording establishes how long those respondents wanted the strikes halted, so their answers cannot be turned into support for permanently abandoning the campaign.⁠3⁠13

The interviews followed an actual, brief period of Ukrainian restraint. President Donald Trump declared an energy truce on October 11 after urging Kyiv to stop attacking Russian refineries. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine then largely suspended those strikes for three days. Russia continued attacking Ukrainian energy facilities, raising fears of electricity and heating outages as winter approached, according to The Kyiv Independent.⁠3

For Ukrainian households, the question therefore reaches beyond the strategic value of damaging Russian refining. Giving up a means of pressure is one decision; doing so without protection for their own homes and essential services is another. The survey result cannot isolate which part of the scenario drove each answer, but any reading that leaves out the lack of reciprocity leaves out a central condition of the choice.

The threatened loss of support was not an abstract diplomatic penalty. Intelligence about incoming missiles, satellite communications used in military operations and air-defense ammunition all concern Ukraine’s ability to fight and protect people. Ukraine said it had faced a temporary pause in American intelligence sharing about incoming Russian ballistic missiles, restrictions on Starlink operations and delays in Patriot air-defense missile shipments as Washington increased pressure over the refinery campaign, The Kyiv Independent reported.⁠3

The U.S. administration denied ordering restrictions to pressure Kyiv. That denial must sit alongside Ukraine’s account: the evidence does not establish an agreed explanation for any interruption or delay. Nor can the poll settle it. A survey can measure people’s response to a stated threat without independently proving that every premise in the question occurred exactly as described.⁠3

Other answers in the same survey point to broader support for resistance. Seventy-six percent favored continuing armed resistance even if Russian winter attacks left people without electricity, heat and sewage. Sixty-three percent said they were prepared to endure the war as long as necessary. Those are separate findings, not additional measurements of support for refinery strikes.⁠13

KIIS interviewed 828 Ukrainian citizens aged 18 and older living in government-controlled territory. The questions were added on the institute’s own initiative to its Omnibus survey, which covers multiple subjects. Interviewers used computer-assisted telephone interviews, randomly generated mobile numbers and subsequent statistical weighting.⁠13

The sample included some internally displaced people who had moved from occupied areas. It excluded people still living under Russian occupation and citizens who had gone abroad after February 24, 2022. These are consequential limits in a country whose population has been scattered by war: the findings describe adults living in government-controlled Ukraine, not all Ukrainian citizens wherever they now live.⁠13

KIIS gives several formal sampling-error benchmarks, rather than one interchangeable margin for every percentage. Under normal circumstances, at 95% confidence and with a survey-design adjustment of 1.3, the maximum errors are 4.4 percentage points near a result of 50%, 3.8 points near 25%, 2.7 points near 10% and 1.9 points near 5%. The institute also warns that wartime conditions introduce additional systematic deviation beyond that formal error. Random calling and weighting cannot remove every distortion caused by occupation, displacement and disrupted lives.⁠13

Within those limits, this is a substantial majority, not a closely divided result. But it is a statement of public preference, not an assessment of military effectiveness. The poll does not calculate damage to Russian refining, the operational cost of losing American assistance or a change from an earlier refinery-strike poll.

The unresolved policy problem is harder than the survey choice: whether Ukraine can sustain pressure on Russia’s oil economy without sacrificing assistance needed to defend its people. What the poll establishes is that most respondents did not see unilateral restraint, with no Russian promise to protect them, as the better bargain.⁠13