Number of Americans who can find Ukraine on a map revealed
In recent weeks, America has begun shipping thousands of tons of guns and ammunition to Ukraine, with President Joe Biden making the country’s growing standoff with Russia a key priority for the White House.
However, regular American voters, more often than not, cannot correctly identify where exactly the aid is being sent, a new poll has revealed.
In a survey conducted on Monday, 2,005 registered US voters were asked to guess where they thought the former Soviet republic is, as tensions flare across the Atlantic.
Americans are frequently mocked for their sometimes subpar knowledge of geography, and just 34% of those polled managed to identify Ukraine on a map. Some even erroneously suggested that the Eastern European nation was in the place of the UK, France, or in North Africa. Nearly three in four voters were able to locate Russia, however.
According to the poll, voters with the lay of the land were also more likely to be in favor of providing Kiev with more assistance, with 50% of those correctly labeling Ukraine also backing shipping arms to the country, compared to 37% of those who needed to brush up on their geography.
Almost three in five (58%) Americans who could spot the nation on a map said that they would endorse a harsh round of sanctions against Russia should it invade. Only 41% of voters unsure of where Ukraine is said that they would be in favor of “the most strenuous” package of punitive measures.
Nearly three-quarters of voters who could find Ukraine said they would be in favor of disconnecting Russia from the SWIFT international payment system in the event of an invasion, and 65% said they would back shutting down the Nord Stream 2 pipeline venture between Berlin and Moscow. The correlating figures for those who could not locate the country on the map were 62% and 51%, respectively.
Despite failing to place the country on a map, around a quarter of Americans in this category supported sending more troops to Eastern Europe “even if there may be US casualties.” Among those who correctly located Ukraine, 34% said they would approve of this decision.
Western officials have been sounding the alarm for months, warning that Moscow’s troops are massing at the shared border ahead of launching a potential invasion, an accusation that the Kremlin has consistently denied.
In January, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced that Biden had authorized an additional $200 million in military assistance to Ukraine the month before, including Javelin anti-tank missiles and “large quantities of artillery.”
The Pentagon chief has previously mistakenly suggested that the “Soviet Union” could order an incursion into Ukraine despite the hammer and sickle falling three decades ago.
