Ukraine aid divides Germans more than immigration, MIDEM polarisation survey finds

Ukraine support now stirs the deepest split

The Polarisierungsbarometer from the Mercator Forum for Migration and Democracy (MIDEM) at TU Dresden finds that support for Ukraine has overtaken immigration as the most emotionally charged issue, according to researchers led by MIDEM director Hans Vorländer. The representative survey covered 2,785 people aged 18 and over and was carried out by YouGov in March 2026, with results published on 10 November 2026.

About 54% want Germany to keep backing Ukraine, while almost 29% favour moving closer to Russia. Around 17% took no position or said they could not judge the question. On a scale from 0 to 10, the share choosing the most pro-Russian extreme rose from 13.7% in the previous survey to 17.3%, which the researchers read as evidence that the divide has deepened.

Keep supporting Ukraine54%

Closer ties with Russia29%

No position17%

Keep supporting Ukraine

54 %

Closer ties with Russia

29 %

No position

17 %

Data from the article text

No overall rise, but the gap is wide

The researchers did not find a general increase in polarisation compared with 2025. Some 83% of respondents described German society as divided, about two percentage points more than a year earlier. Immigration remains a fixed fault line: 65.1% want entry for foreigners restricted, against 67% the year before, while 17.3% favour easing it. Support for easing skilled-worker immigration stood at 56% in spring, down from 61% a year earlier, with 27% opposed.

On redistribution, 50.9% said transfers from rich to poor are insufficient and 25.5% said they go too far. On climate policy, 43% judged current measures insufficient and 37.8% excessive.

Affective polarisation tracks party lines

Beyond ideology, the study measured affective polarisation, meaning how strongly people reject those who hold different views. Supporters of the AfD and the Greens were the most inclined to rate people with differing opinions negatively. Men were on average more affectively polarised than women, and people over 70 and those with lower education also showed above-average tendencies. Respondents rated groups on a scale from minus 5 (very cold and negative) to plus 5 (very warm and positive), across 15 topics. The authors summarised the party gap as follows:

“Both groups show clearly stronger affective polarisation potential than people who sympathise with parties such as CDU/CSU, SPD or Die Linke.”

Federal pledge and a sharp East-West divide

In early November the federal government announced that German aid to Ukraine will continue until the war ends. A separate poll reported on 9 November found 53% of Germans consider this pledge right, 45% consider it wrong and 2% answered don't know. Western Germans mostly back continued aid until the war ends, while a similarly large majority in the East reject it. The sharpest gap runs between AfD supporters, most of whom reject the pledge, and supporters of the CDU/CSU, SPD, Greens and Die Linke, most of whom endorse it.

Federal government figures put German support since 2022 at about 100 billion euros, made up of 43.3 billion euros in civilian aid and 57.6 billion euros in military aid. Kiel Institute analyses cited in the report say much of the civilian aid stays in Germany for Ukrainians living there. Around 22 billion euros of military aid are commitments whose delivery is still open. Germany is the largest donor to Ukraine in Europe.

Civilian aid43.3

Military aid57.6

Civilian aid

43.3 billion euros

Military aid

57.6 billion euros

Data from the article text