Thinking and Talking About War: How the Public in Six Countries Discusses the Outbreak of the War in Ukraine

Abstract The Russian aggression in Ukraine, launched on 24 February 2022, marked the return of conventional war in the European continent. While Western leaders have framed the ongoing conflict through a common narrative when speaking internationally, which varies in its national nuances, much less is known about the images and lenses that the European public uses to understand the conflict and the role that the European Union (EU) plays in it. Drawing on a unique set of qualitative data from a series of 12 focus groups conducted in six European countries 6 months from the start of the war (France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain and Poland), this article illustrates how the participants perceive, discuss and frame the war in Ukraine and its consequences. By analysing how they organise and express their beliefs about the consequences of the war on their daily lives and what role they imagine for Europe and their own country in such a situation, this paper sheds light on the way people reason about important political events and to what extent these conversations diverge from the discourse used by political elites.