A large number of Europeans believe there is a significant risk of war with Russia, according to an opinion poll conducted in nine European Union countries and published yesterday by the French magazine "Le Grand Continent". According to the poll, in which 9,553 people participated, more than half of the respondents (51%) believe there is a "high" or "very high" risk of war between Russia and their countries in the coming years. The nine countries are France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Poland, Portugal, Croatia, Belgium, and the Netherlands, with samples of over 1,000 people in each. The question, which the group "Cluster 17" posed at the end of last November for the magazine "Le Grand Continent", was: "In your opinion, could Russia go to war with your country in the coming years?". The perception of the risk of an open conflict with Russia varies from country to country. In Poland, neighboring Russia and its ally Belarus, 77% of respondents saw this risk as high or very high, while this figure was 54% in France and 51% in Germany. Unlike the Poles, 65% of Italian respondents in the poll considered the risk to be low or non-existent. The poll also showed that a large majority (81%) do not believe there will be a war with China in the coming years. On the other hand, participants in the poll doubted their countries' military capabilities against Moscow, with more than two-thirds of them (69%) believing they are "not capable at all" or "rather not capable" of defending themselves against a Russian attack.
