🔎 What Question Was Asked:

How do perceived motives of foreign donors shape attitudes toward aid in an active conflict zone? The focus is the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine and two competing ways of framing donor intent: as alleviating suffering (humanitarian) or as expanding donor power and influence (political influence).

🧭 How Motives Were Presented to Recipients:

• Two frames were posed to potential aid recipients in Donbas: a humanitarian frame and a political-influence frame.
• Reactions to these frames were measured for two specific donors: the European Union and the Russian government.

📌 Key Findings:

• Framing effects matter for perceptions of the European Union: how EU aid is framed changes support for that aid.
• Frames produced no measurable change in views of Russian aid; Russian aid perceptions were unaffected by whether motives were framed as humanitarian or geopolitical.
• Contrary to expectations, aid portrayed as serving geopolitical or strategic interests can be seen as a positive, stabilizing force—sometimes more favorably than aid framed purely as humanitarian.

💡 Why This Matters:

• Perceived donor motives can shape public receptivity to assistance in conflict settings, but the influence of framing varies by donor and context.
• These results have implications for how international actors communicate about their assistance and for interpreting public opinion in contested regions where donor identity interacts with local political dynamics.