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Authors:

Gerard Toal (Professor of Government and International Affairs, Virginia Tech)

John O'Loughlin (Professor of Geography, ����Vlog�ƽ��)

Kristin M Bakke (Professor in Political Science and International Relations, UCL)

For historical purposes, a copy of the article:

A U.S.-Ukraine has put the notion of a negotiated end to the three-year war on the agenda, and in the hands of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

But even before Moscow responds, it’s pretty clear where the parties stand. Breaking a prior , the U.S. has suggested in any permanent deal, whereas has stated repeatedly that he will never yield sovereignty over Ukraine’s territory.

Meanwhile, Russia has demanded that and accept restrictions on its military. But at present, Kyiv looks it seeks from the U.S. before contemplating such terms.

What is talked about less is what the Ukrainian people are willing to accept for peace. And while any armistice will likely be dictated by guns, territorial gains and great power geopolitics, it will be in large part down to ordinary Ukrainians to shape what happens afterward. An ugly peace may be accepted by a war-weary population. But if it has little local legitimacy and acceptance, peace is likely to be unsustainable in the long run.

We have tracked public opinion in Ukraine and .

It is an ; most polling in wartime Ukraine is by mobile phone and depends upon those with service who are willing to participate. Many people, especially in the country’s south and east, do not want to answer sensitive questions out of concern for themselves and relatives, some in occupied territories and Russia.

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Those who do respond may give guarded responses. Some are mindful of , while others are patriotic or wish to present themselves as such to the stranger calling them. Meanwhile, many other Ukrainians are overseas and excluded. Similarly, those in Russian-occupied territories are left out of surveys.

Nonetheless, the responses still give insights into how opinions in Ukraine have evolved since the Russian invasion of February 2022. Here are five important findings from relatively recent public opinion polls that are relevant to any forthcoming peace negotiations.

1. Nearly all Ukrainians are stressed and tired of war

Unsurprisingly, three years of a brutal war of aggression has created tremendous stress among a population increasingly weary of war.

A December 2024 poll from the respected found that at least one stressful situation in the previous year. Large shares reported stressful experiences related to bombing and shelling (39%), separation from family members (30%), surviving the death of loves ones (26%) and the illness of loved ones (23%). Only 10% said they’d experienced no stressful situations.

In a related vein, surveys showed that by summer 2024, 84% of the population had experienced violence in some form – be that physical injury at the hands of Russian forces, displacement, loss of family member and friends, or witnessing attacks.

And consistent with a growing number of news reports, we found that Ukrainians were deeply worried about war weariness among their fellow Ukrainians – just 10% reported that they did not worry about war fatigue at all.

2. More Ukrainians want negotiations, but there are red lines

As the war has gone on, several polls show that . The share of the population in favor of negotiations varies depending on how the question is posed.

When given the choice between two options, a showed that 52% preferred that “Ukraine should seek to negotiate an ending to the war as soon as possible,” whereas 38% preferred that “Ukraine should continue fighting until it wins the war.”

Our earlier surveys similarly show a growing preference for negotiations, though at a lower level – from 11% in 2022 to 31% in 2024. In contrast to the binary Gallup question, presented respondents with different territorial compromises for a ceasefire. While about one-third wanted an immediate ceasefire, half wanted to continue fighting until all territories, including the predominately Russian-speaking Donbas region and Crimea, are brought back under Kyiv’s control.

But survey responses make clear that the for the public – even if defending it comes at a very high cost.

3. Ukrainians are more open to territorial concessions

In tandem with growing support for negotiations, – in line with – show growing willingness to cede territory. And among those most worried about war fatigue and more pessimistic about continued Western support, the willingness to cede territory is higher.

That said, most Ukrainians still want Ukraine to continue fighting until the country’s territorial integrity is restored and under Kyiv’s control, including Crimea. But that majority has diminished since the beginning of the war – from 71% in 2022 to 51% in 2024.

When we asked in July 2024 whether people agreed with the statement: “Russia should be allowed to control the territory it has occupied since 2022,” 90% disagreed. As such, there is very little evidence that Russia’s territorial annexations – or an agreement recognizing these, which is what Russia wants – will have any legitimacy among Ukraine’s population.

4. Ukrainians see Russia’s war goals in existential terms

Neither Zelenskyy nor most Ukrainians – hence there’s a strong preference for any agreement being accompanied by security guarantees from NATO states.

Many Ukrainians share their leader’s distrust of Vladimir Putin.

interpret Russia’s war aims as an existential threat, comprising and destruction of its independent statehood. And 87% believe Russia will not stop at the territories it already occupies. Negotiating with an enemy bent on Ukraine’s destruction appears delusional to many Ukrainians.

5. Zelenskyy remains popular; his endorsement matters

As a defiant wartime leader, President Zelenskyy’s popularity was very high in the immediate months after the invasion. Indeed, from May 2022 show that 90% of the population expressed trust in him.

This has declined as the war has endured, but it has always remained above 50%. Recent polling puts it at 63%, an increase from 2024. Indeed, the very latest KIIS polls, from February through March of this year, show a 10-point jump in his trust rating to 67%, a finding widely viewed as .

Thus of any ceasefire and settlement will matter, though ceding territory is likely to be hazardous for him politically.

National security adviser Mike Waltz, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan and U.S. and Ukrainian delegates meet in Saudi Arabia on March 11, 2025.

Conditions for a lasting peace

While the U.S.-Ukraine accord on a ceasefire has “, it is unclear whether it will be enough to bring Putin to the table. And even if it does, given past precedent it is difficult to see him arriving as a compromiser rather than a conqueror.

What does appear clear is that whatever “peace” emerges looks set to hang more on Ukraine making concessions and accepting losses.

Such a peace can be negotiated behind closed doors. But without public support in Ukraine, whether it endures on the ground is another matter.

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����Vlog�ƽ��'s Geography Department is calling for maps that capture life affirming geographies  - following Cindi Katz’s invitation for imagining Topographies of Hope (2001) and Sarah Elwood’s (2021) invitation for reading how social movements enact thriving otherwise, this Mapathon is an exercise in the active enactment of hope.

Link to the event website: (https://sites.google.com/view/cu-geography-mapathon/home?authuser=0) 

Frequently Asked Questions

(FAQ pulled directly from the event website)

• Cindi Katz Colloquium Lecture, March 7, 2025, Benson Earth Sciences Building, Room 180.

• Mapathon Contest, submissions close March 12.

• Colorado Geographies Panel, March 14, 2025, Benson Earth Sciences, Room 180.

Conventional, creative, drawn, digital, and abstract representations of geographic spaces or places are all acceptable. See this link for examples. Both digital and analog maps are accepted. For analog or drawn maps, please take a picture of your map and submit the picture to the .

Winning and honorable mention maps in the below categories will be displayed in the Maps Library on March 14, 2025.  At a reception following the Colorado Geographies Panel on March 14, attendees can vote on their favorite Map (People’s Choice Award). Two winners (Best Overall Map and People's Choice Map) will recieve a cash prize, given out during that reception!

Categories:

• Grand Prize: Best Overall Map

• People’s Choice:  Voted on by attendees

• Thematic Awards:

  • Sustainability & Environmental Justice

  • Innovation

  • Social Justice

  • Inclusivity & Diversity

  • Relationality & Community Engagement

  • Personal Exploration & Storytelling

Honorable mentions will be acknowledge for Creativity, Design, and Cartographic Expertise.

Once you submit your map it will be reviewed by a panel of CU Geography Faculty and Graduate Students based on the following criteria:

• Evident engagement with the Mapathon theme

  1. Does the map clearly relate to the theme of geographies of hope and the making of life affirming geographies?

  2. Does the map answer the question: what does hope look like to you?

• Creativity and Originality

  1. Is the theme presented in a unique way? Is it original?

  2. Is the result distinctive? Does it leave an impression?

• Educational and learning potential

  1. The basic functionality of a map is to convey information. Does this map offer a way of understanding the topic?

• Mapping Proficiency

  1. Does the map show evidence of a mastery of the tools and techniques utilized, as appropriate for the student’s level?

  2. Are the use of tools and techniques well executed?

• Overall Quality

  1. What is the effect of the map in general and as a whole?

  2. Overall, does the map stand on its own as a complete and outstanding work of mapping?

Yes! Those outside of CU ����Vlog�ƽ�� are welcome to submit to the Mapathon and will be evaluated with their academic background in mind.  For example, if you are a K-12 Educator, we encourage you to submit your students' maps and they will not be judged against PhD-level submissions.

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Sarah Posner was awarded the NSF Human-Environment and Geographical Sciences Program - Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Award (HEGS-DDRI) for her project, 'The Role of Local Institutions in Managing Pastoralists' Natural Resources and Related Conflict in Northern Kenya’.

Project Overview

This project investigates the role of local institutions, both formal and informal, in managing natural resources and related conflict among pastoralists. Local institutions are key for pastoralist societies in arid rangelands operating in an environment of a weak state where inter-communal conflict is endemic and often disruptive to livelihoods. Isiolo County, located in the Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASALs) of Northern Kenya, is an ideal region to investigate natural resource management due to its ecological, cultural, and ethnic diversity. The county hosts four prominent pastoralist societies, the Samburu, Turkana, Borana, and Somali with varying institutional arrangements (formal, informal, and hybridized) to manage natural resources including water and pasture. The study employs a mixed-methods approach, utilizing primary quantitative survey data and qualitative interviews and Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) to locate, measure, and predict the social outcomes of local institutions (cooperative or conflictual) across these four pastoralist communities in Isiolo county, Kenya. Results from the study can be generalized to other arid rangelands across East Africa and pastoralist contexts to improve natural resource management and violence prevention.

Intellectual Merit

By studying individuals’ perceptions of their institutional environments, we can better understand how natural resources are managed and how related conflict and cooperation dynamics evolve. This is especially pertinent in regions where governmental and traditional natural resource governance rules and norms overlap and at times, conflict. Despite numerous studies on national-level and formal local-level institutions, few studies investigate both formal and informal institutions and their relation to low-level, intercommunal conflict across multiple pastoralist societies. There is conflicting evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa on whether these institutions exacerbate or mitigate tensions between competing groups, with effectiveness varying across institutional contexts. By integrating methodological approaches and theoretical insights from environmental security, political ecology, and common property literature, this study advances scholarly literature in Geography and Development Studies on the social outcomes of local institutions managing natural resources during a time of accelerating environmental and climatic change.

Broader Impacts

Despite pastoralists having developed institutions to manage water and grazing resources among and between groups, armed conflict in the form of inter-communal cattle raiding persists in the arid rangelands. The IPCC warns that climate change may exacerbate these dynamics as, “there is increasing evidence linking increased temperatures and drought to conflict risk in Africa (high confidence),” particularly in populations that depend on agriculture or are politically excluded (IPCC 2022, p. 9).” By investigating the role of both formal and informal institutions utilized by a range of pastoralist groups operating in a marginalized region far from the locus of power in the Kenyan state, this study will inform local level peacebuilding efforts and resource management policies. The study also enhances local research capacity by training and hiring a team of local research assistants and enumerators which will ensure high-quality data collection through sophisticated survey methods and sharpen the co-PI’s fieldwork skills in the process of completion of the dissertation. By building local capacity, this research not only strengthens academic infrastructure but also promotes knowledge exchange that can improve natural resource management practices and policies.

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Shannon Francis (Hopi/Dineh)
Executive Director
Spirit of the Sun, Inc.

Lucy Molina
Environmental Justice Activist
Commerce City, CO

Ana Miller
Advocate/Organizer
Housekeys Action Network Denver (H.A.N.D) 

The Colorado Geographies event will feature a panel of community leaders, elders, and activists living, working, who express the everyday ways of enacting life affirming geographies in the here and now. Indigenous community leader, Shannon Francis brings a wealth of wisdom on the everyday care taking of elders, Native ecologies, and models for enacting youth education. Latine environmental justice leader, Lucy Molina brings decades of knowledge on enacting community environmental monitoring and organizing for ecological and racial justice. Ana Miller is an organizer with Housekeys Action Network, a collective of advocates for the unsheltered community. Ana brings a decade of experience in advocating for the needs and desires of the unsheltered community. The culmination of these speakers expresses the multiple ways Colorado communities are already enacting life affirming geographies.

Panelist Bios:

Shannon Francis

Shannon Francis, is Hopi and Dineh from the Southwest homelands of Arizona and New Mexico. She is from the Towering House clan born for Red Running into the Water clan. Her Hopi clans are Massau', Bear, Sand, and Snake Clan. Shannon comes from twelve generations of farmers, ethnobotanists, and seed keepers. As a certified Permaculture Designer and Instructor, Shannon weaves TEK Traditional Ecological Knowledge with innovative science. She loves to educate on caretaking of land, water, and soil resources; preserving Native heirloom GMO-free seeds, zero-waste philosophy, and how to live more harmoniously with nature. Shannon is the Executive Director for Spirit of the Sun, Inc. in Denver. Shannon served on the Four Winds council as Board Chair and continues to serve on the Leadership council for American Indian Movement of Colorado (AIM). Shannon is currently a 2023 Livingston Fellow through Bonfils Stanton Foundation. Spirit of the Sun received the 2020 Human Rights Award from Youth Celebrate Diversity. Shannon received the Justin B. Willie humanitarian award (2014) on the Navajo Nation as well as the Cesar E. Chavez female leadership award (2015) for her work with Indigenous, food justice, and community building projects. Shannon has six wonderful children and four amazing grandchildren that are her inspiration to make this a better world for all future generations to come.

Lucy Molina

Lucy Molina is a dedicated environmental justice activist from Commerce City, CO, renowned for her tireless efforts in advocating for cleaner air and healthier living conditions in her community. As a prominent figure in the fight against environmental racism, Lucy has been a pivotal voice in highlighting the disproportionate impact of industrial pollution on marginalized communities. Her activism gained widespread recognition with her compelling appearance in the film A Good Neighbor, where she passionately shared the stories and struggles of her community.

In addition to her role in the documentary, Lucy has been featured on PBS and various local and international news outlets, amplifying her message and reaching a broader audience. Her work has earned her significant accolades, including recognition from environmental organizations and community awards for her unwavering commitment to justice and equity.

Lucy's passion for her community is evident in every endeavor she undertakes. She has organized numerous rallies, community meetings, and educational campaigns to raise awareness and drive change. Her relentless advocacy has not only brought attention to the environmental challenges faced by Commerce City but has also inspired many to join the fight for a cleaner, healthier future.

Ana Miller

Ana-Lilith Miller (she/her 🏳️‍⚧️). Ana is a 43 year old trans woman with 12 years experience living on the streets. She is an advocate/organizer with Housekeys Action Network Denver (H.A.N.D.) coming up on 3 years with them. We are a houseless rights group that advocates with the houseless community to give them a voice in their treatment. She believes that "Housing Is a Human Right For All", and that the best way to achieve systemic change is by uplifting the voices of the houseless themselves. 

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Cindi Katz
Professor of Geography, Women’s and Gender Studies, and American Studies
Graduate Center of the City University of New York

Abstract:

Practicing hope keeps the possibility of change alive—a methodology against fear in dismal times. And while the dismal touches all too many places in multiple registers these days, countertopography is a way of marking the common effects of, and responses to, large-scale processes in disparate locations. Drawing out the common grounds and entanglements of such shifts as global economic restructuring, deskilling, state violence, or dispossession as they play out in distinct and dissimilar places offers a new geographical imagination for political organizing and action. Its ‘contour lines’ intended to incite new political imaginaries and spur alternative geographies of action and activism, potential spaces of hope in an expanded field. In this talk I will look at some of the experiences, practices, and challenges of grassroots organizations negotiating complicated place-based struggles while simultaneously engaging their translocal aspirations as critical to understand in building social movements at once global and intimate, sustainable and targeted, grounded and boundary crossing. Their actions create contour lines for practice and trace topographies of hope at different times and places making the imagined possible despite the dangers and displacements associated with the mobilities of capital accumulation, racialized state violence, and neoliberal land grabs.

Speaker Bio:

Cindi Katz is Professor of Geography, Women’s and Gender Studies, and American Studies at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Her research concerns social reproduction, the production of nature, the workings of the security state in everyday environments, the privatization of the public environment, the cultural politics of childhood, and the intertwining of memory and history in the geographical imagination. She has published widely on these themes as well as on social theory and the politics of knowledge. She is the author of Growing up Global: Economic Restructuring and Children’s Everyday Lives (2004) which won the American Association of Geographers Meridian Book Award for the Outstanding Scholarly Work in Geography. She is the editor (with Janice Monk) of Full Circles: Geographies of Gender over the Life Course (1993), Life’s Work: Geographies of Social Reproduction (with Sallie Marston and Katharyne Mitchell) (2004), and The People, Place, and Space Reader (with Jen Jack Gieseking, William Mangold, Setha Low, and Susan Saegert) (2014). The 2024 recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Honor and the 2021 recipient of Distinguished Scholarship Honors from the AAG, Katz held a fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University (2003-4), and the Diane Middlebrook and Carl Djerassi Visiting Professorship in Gender Studies at Cambridge University (2011-12). She is working on two book projects: Childhood as Spectacle and a collection of her writings on social reproduction tentatively titled Vagabond Capitalism: Social Reproduction in Crisis.

Want to know more about the bond between people and place?

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Redirect to: /asmagazine/2025/02/05/path-better-mental-health-walk-park

CU ����Vlog�ƽ�� researchers Colleen Reid, Emma Rieves and their colleagues explored the potential impact of objective and perceived greenspace exposure on mental health

If you or a loved one is struggling with mental health, you’re not alone. Roughly one in every five adults experienced symptoms of anxiety or depression over the past two weeks, according to a 2022 CDC . The good news is a better state of mind could be right in your backyard—literally.

Perceived greenspace exposure—which represents a person’s perception of the amount and quality of access to and time spent in nearby greenspace—may have a significant positive effect on certain aspects of mental health, according to from an interdisciplinary ����Vlog�ƽ�� team.

With Associate Geography Professor Colleen Reid at the helm, researchers from the Geography, Psychology and Neuroscience departments as well as the Institute for Behavioral Genetics and the Institute of Behavioral Science explored the link between greenspace exposure and stress, anxiety and depression.

Their study revealed a strong association between perceived greenspace exposure and reduced anxiety. Could better mental health be as simple as a walk in the park? Perhaps, says lead study author and geography PhD candidate Emma Rieves.

The relationship between greenspace and mental health “isn’t just about the greenspace that’s empirically there,” which they measured by aggregating the green pixels, representing greenspace, from aerial imagery, also known as objective green space. “The relationship is mainly influenced by aspects of green space that aren’t well captured by objective measures, such as the quality of the green space, how much time someone spends in green space and how accessible it is,” she says.

Research in the time of COVID-19

Reid started the study in late 2019, says Rieves, who arrived on campus to begin her graduate education in the fall of 2020. “It was weird,” she recalls. “But the [geography] department did a lot to facilitate interactions between students despite the restrictions that were in place at the time.”

Even before Rieves dove into the research project, she had personal experience with nature’s capacity to ease her mind, particularly during the early days of lockdown. “Being in nature definitely helped to combat some of the negative emotions you have when you’re stuck sitting in your house, doomscrolling and wiping down all your produce,” she recalls.

To determine the effect of greenspace exposure on the study’s research subjects, the team had to switch gears early in the data-collection process to account for the extra stress associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, says Rieves.

Once COVID-19 public health restrictions were in place, however, they added pandemic-specific questions to their mental health survey so that subjects could share the extent to which they were impacted by stressors such finances, resources and the possibility of infection. Their analysis could then control for pandemic-specific variables to more accurately identify the connection between mental health and greenspace exposure, says Rieves.

Is greenspace exposure a key to mental health?

The researchers found that perceived greenspace exposure was directly linked to reduced anxiety metrics and had a borderline statistically significant relationship with lower levels of depression metrics. Meanwhile, objective greenspace exposure bore no statistically significant association with anxiety, depression or stress.

In other words, when it came to mental health, and anxiety in particular, objective greenspace exposure mattered far less than subjects’ perceptions of greenspace exposure.

“ Based on the presence of green pixels, a vacant lot full of weeds would register as having a high green space signal. But if you were there, you might not perceive it as a superabundant green space,” says Rieves. “We found that other factors, like the quality of the environment in this example, is more important to the mental health and greenspace relationship.”

At the same time, the findings revealed a positive association between socioeconomic status and both objective and perceived greenspace, where people with higher socioeconomic status had higher perceived and objective greenspace exposure.

The takeaway

While no one is promising that a walk in the woods is a magic bullet, getting out in nature is never a bad idea, says Rieves. And no matter what the pixels indicate, or how many minutes a day you spend around trees, the data indicate that people’s perceptions of their own greenspace exposure are important to unlocking better mental health, says Rieves.

“This study doesn’t prescribe any specific level of greenspace exposure needed to reap its mental health benefits, but if you feel like you’re surrounded by greenspace, it’s probably good for you.”

CU ����Vlog�ƽ�� scientists Naomi Friedman and Samantha Freis contributed to this research.

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Kate Little has received the from the Colorado School of Public Health for her project Understanding Drivers of Firearm Access Among Colorado American Indian Youth: Opportunities for School-Level Prevention. 

Project Background: American Indian and Alaska Native youth have a high risk for death by firearm suicide and tend to have quick access to firearms in Colorado. Firearm access is the most easily modifiable risk factor to prevent a firearm suicide death. The high lethality of firearms and short time window between suicide ideation and action require that researchers develop a nuanced understanding of the individual and ecological characteristics of youth with firearm access,  as these factors may be directly associated with risk of death by firearm. Understanding how youth acquire firearms and who has access, and the characteristics their schools access can inform school-based firearm suicide prevention strategies.

Project Design: The research project will use multilevel modelling techniques to understand how individual and school-level characteristics that are associated with individual firearm access among Native American and Alaska Native High School Students in Colorado, and how those characteristics differ from students of other identities.

Kate is pursuing a Master's degree in Geography at the ����Vlog�ƽ�� and is a Research Analyst at the Injury and Violence Prevention Center. Her work uses GIS and statistical methods to better understand firearm harms among youth and adults and how they vary geographically.  This award will support her work in investigating the contexts of the schools in which Indigenous Colorado youth gain access to firearms. She is passionate about effectively communicating research to the affected communities and hopes that this award will help prevent firearm injuries and deaths among Indigenous Colorado youth. 

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