Russia Ukraine: Americans were once asked to find invaded country on a map with disastrous results

Back in 2014, the American public was surveyed about how they felt the nation should respond to the Russian troops who invaded the Crimean peninsula.

However, political scientists Kyle Dropp, Joshua D Kertzer, and Thomas Zeitoff took it a step further and asked 2,066 respondents in a survey to pinpoint Ukraine on a map - and the results were disastrous.

Their research discovered that only one out of six Americans (16 per cent) could accurately locate Ukraine on a map - and many were worryingly way off.

And it turned out that the less accurate their guesses, the more they wanted the US to intervene with military force.

The Americans who correctly identified Ukraine clicked somewhere within its borders, however many believed that Ukraine was somewhere in Asia and the median respondent was about 1800 miles off, which is around the distance from Chicago to Los Angeles - locating Ukraine in an area bordered by Portugal on the west, Sudan on the south, Kazakhstan on the east, and Finland on the north.

The survey also indicated that people's ability to find Ukraine on a map correctly varies depending on the demographic.
People aged 18 to 24 (27 per cent) provided more accurate responses than people aged 65 and older (14 per cent). Men also performed better than women, with 20 per cent of them identifying Ukraine.

Americans guess where Ukraine is on the map Thomas Zeitoff/The Monkey Cage is credit

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Also, what the experts found interesting was that people who come from military households weren't more likely to identify Ukraine than people who didn't come from military homes (16.1 and 16 per cent respectively).

And when it comes to political affiliation, people who identify as Independents also outshined Democrats and Republicans.

Towards the end, the outlet suggested that previous research would indicate that it does matter where Americans put Ukraine on the map.

But information or the absence of information can influence Americans' views and responses about the policies they want their government to enact and the ability of those elites to mold that agenda.

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