opinion poll
One in five believes in conspiracy myths about the Ukraine war
When it comes to the Ukraine war, there is a significantly large group in Germany that is willing to believe conspiracy stories. For them, Vladimir Putin is not Europe’s gravedigger (photo), but someone who is made a scapegoat by the West
© Vadim Ghirda / DPA
It’s a crux, as Corona showed: How do you deal with people who can no longer be impressed with facts? A survey now shows that when it comes to the Ukraine war, there are more people than expected who believe the conspiracy stories.
According to a survey, conspiracy stories about the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine are widespread in Germany and are mainly believed by AfD voters and the unvaccinated. Overall, almost a fifth of those questioned “rather” agreed with conspiracy ideological statements about the war, as the newspapers of the editorial network Germany (RND) reported, citing the survey by the Center for Monitoring, Analysis and Strategy (Cemas).
Among the voters of the AfD it was even almost 60 percent. It was 26 percent among left-wing voters and around 15 percent among FDP voters. The voters of the CDU/CSU (just under twelve percent) and SPD (around ten percent), on the other hand, hardly differed in this respect. The lowest was the approval of conspiracy ideological statements with less than four percent among Green voters.
The survey asked for agreement with about a dozen statements. Around 12 percent agreed completely and almost 20 percent at least partially agreed with the statement that Vladimir Putin was taking action “against a global elite that is pulling the strings in the background.” A good 15 percent of those surveyed believed completely and around 16 percent partially believed that Putin was being made a scapegoat by the West in order to distract attention from the real problems.
Secret bioweapons labs?
Almost seven percent fully agreed with the unsubstantiated conspiracy story that Ukraine is running secret laboratories for the production of biological weapons together with the USA, and twice as many partially agreed. The survey also shows a connection between Corona conspiracy myths and those about the Russian war against Ukraine. Among the unvaccinated and people who are also willing to protest against corona measures, approval of such statements was highest at around 56 percent.
“The results show once again for society what we have already been able to prove for the digital space: where corona denial was previously the topic, the war of aggression against Ukraine is now being charged with conspiracy ideology,” Cemas Managing Director Pia Lamberty told RND . “Accordingly, it is important to develop long-term strategies for dealing with it. These mobilizations will not simply disappear – especially in view of the multiple crisis situations,” she added.
For the study, Cemas had the market research institute Bilendi & respondi interview people between the ages of 18 and 92 from April 1 to 12, 2031 using a standardized online questionnaire. According to Cemas, the survey is representative of the German population.
Research Papers: “From Crisis to War: Conspiracy Narratives About Aggressive War Against Ukraine in Society”