From Russia with War: The Russia-Ukraine Conflict and NATO Resurgence?

We exploit the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine as a shock to the anti-Russia attitudes in Spain. We collect data from multiple sources: the Spanish NATO referendumof 1986, monthly public opinion surveys with voting and pro-war attitudes, and the universe of political speeches in the Spanish Congress. Using different empirical strategies we robustly identify the effect of the invasion on domestic politics. The three main results are the following: we show that the Russia-Ukraine conflict increased by around 5 percentage points the current intention to vote for the main center-right party (Partido Popular–PP) among the individuals in the municipalities that strongly supported NATO in the 1986 referendum. Similarly, in those municipalities, individuals have lower “sympathy” for Russia and a stronger perception of the country as a military threat. Finally, the increase in the voting intention for the PP goes hand in hand with the legislators’ narrative in Congress: after the invasion, PP legislators are more likely to mention Russia in their speeches, and when they do, they talk more negatively about it.