By Olha Hembik | 2026-04-14

In the fifth year of Russia's war on Ukraine, the Kremlin has achieved something remarkable: it has convinced a majority of its citizens to view longtime economic and cultural partners as existential threats.

A recent study commissioned by Deutsche Sacharow Gesellschaft and conducted by the Moscow-based Levada Center documented the results. Based on in-person surveys conducted in 2025, the report -- "Russia and the World: Enemies, Competitors, Partners" -- finds that Poland and Lithuania top Russia's enemy rankings, each named hostile by 62% of respondents. The United Kingdom followed at 57%, Germany at 50% and Sweden at 40%. One in four Russians views the United States as an enemy.

These are the same countries Russians once held up as development models.

From models to menace

"The European countries are viewed as a threat to Russia's existence," said Lev Gudkov, academic supervisor of the Levada Center, presenting the study in Berlin in January.

In the four years of full-scale war, he noted, most Russians have developed clear hostility toward Western nations that served as a "model for development" in the 1990s. He drew a direct line between that shift and the Kremlin's mass propaganda operation.

The survey found that 76% of Russians support their country's actions in Ukraine. Western countries, in this framework, are cast as deliberate antagonists.

"The Russians need enemies, and their search for them is often reminiscent of paranoia," Darius Sipavicius, a Lithuanian national who volunteers with the organization Norsk Ukrainestøtte (Norwegian Support for Ukraine), told Kontur.

He noted that landing on Russia's enemy list has become something of a badge of honor.

"I realize that the Russian army is now diminished, but I didn't know it was so diminished that it considers Lithuania its number one enemy," he said.

Propaganda in practice

Russia's official list of "unfriendly states," approved by government order on March 5, 2022, includes countries that have supported Ukraine or imposed sanctions on Russia. The list has grown steadily since.

Russian state media has since worked to populate that list with narrative. The newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets accused Polish authorities of "anti-Russian hysteria" in a January article denying Russian involvement in railway explosions near Warsaw.

The business outlet Vzglyad characterized Poland's plans to seek compensation for Soviet-era damages as an attempt to "get its hands on Russia's frozen assets."

Lithuanian measures revoking residency permits from Russians who travel home frequently, which Vilnius frames as a security matter, are portrayed in Russian media as "violations of rights" and "anti-Russian measures."

Dominik Gąsiorowski, a Polish expert on countering Russian propaganda, told Kontur that Russophobia in Poland runs deep enough that politicians aligned with Russian interests avoid speaking openly. He said that after the war in Ukraine, Poland "somewhat reluctantly will take in ethnically indigenous Russians, even in the event of a humanitarian catastrophe."

Piotr Kulpa, a former Polish deputy minister of labor and social policy and chairman of the board of the Republican Foundation of Ukraine, said Russia's presence in Europe brings concrete dangers: hybrid war, terrorism, sponsored corruption, and institutional destabilization. On the question of Russian energy resources, he told Kontur that "fear needs to be three times as powerful as our greed."

The road to change

Russian attitudes toward Western nations are increasingly matched by Western attitudes toward Russia. A study by the Institute for Market and Social Research (IBRiS) found that Russians ranked last among 18 nationalities assessed by Polish respondents. Fifty-seven percent of Poles viewed Russians negatively; only 18% held a positive view.

Poland has accepted nearly 1 million Ukrainian refugees, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), second only to Germany among European host countries. Experts link a modest rise in Polish distrust of Ukrainians, from 20 to 27%, to war fatigue, though overall support for Ukraine remains strong.

The path toward any normalization, analysts say, runs through a fundamental shift inside Russia itself.

Journalist Vitaly Portnikov wrote in February that as long as Russians believe Ukraine's statehood should be destroyed and its people eliminated, "the conflict will continue on several levels of escalation at once, even if Moscow doesn't have enough forces for intensive military actions." Russia, he wrote, "needs to undergo a profound transformation."

Experts say such transformation is unlikely until both the regime and the Russian public's worldview change. Until then, the enemy list will keep growing.