The press release was prepared by Anton Hrushetskyi, executive director of KIIS

From September 20 to October 3, 2024, the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) conducted its own all-Ukrainian public opinion survey "Omnibus", to which, on its own initiative, added a question about trust inV. Zelenskyi. By the method of telephone interviews (computer-assistedtelephoneinterviews, CATI) based on a random sample of mobile phone numbers (with random generation of phone numbers and subsequent statistical weighting) in all regions of Ukraine (territory under the control of the Government of Ukraine) 2004 respondents were interviewed. The survey was conducted with adult (aged 18 and older) citizens of Ukraine who, at the time of the survey, lived on the territory of Ukraine controlled by the Government of Ukraine. The sample did not include residents of territories that are temporarily not controlled by the authorities of Ukraine (at the same time, part of the respondents are IDPs who moved from the occupied territories), and the survey was not conducted with citizens who went abroad after February 24, 2022.

Formally, under normal circumstances, the statistical error of such a sample (with a probability of 0.95 and taking into account the design effect of 1.3) did not exceed 2.9% for indicators close to 50%, 2.5% for indicators close to 25%, 1.7% - for indicators close to 10%, 1.3% - for indicators close to 5%.

Under the conditions of war, in addition to the specified formal error, a certain systematic deviation is added. Factors that can affect the quality of results in "wartime" conditions were previously cited by the KIIS.

In general, we believe that the obtained results are still highly representative and allow a fairly reliable analysis of the public moodts of the population.

KMIS regularly monitors the attitude towards various public institutions and subjects, in particular, towards the President of Ukraine. The attitude towards the President is not only an assessment of his activities as an official, but also in a broader interpretation is a marker of the domestic political situation (especially against the background of a full-scale invasion).

The graph below shows the dynamics of trust in President V. Zelensky from 2019 to the end of September 2024. After the 2019 presidential and parliamentary elections, 80% of Ukrainians trusted V. Zelenskyi. However, by February 2022, the level of trust gradually decreased to 37% (and on the eve of the invasion, there were already more people who did not trust him).

After the invasion, the trust level increased to 90%. By the end of December 2023, the level of trust decreased to 77%, by February 2024 – to 64%, by May 2024 – to 59%. Simultaneously between May and September 2024, the indicators have practically not changed and currently 59% of Ukrainians trust V. Zelenskyi, 37% do not trust.

Graph 1. Dynamics of trust in President V. Zelenskyi during 2019-2024

"To what extent do you trust or not trust Volodymyr Zelenskyi?"

In all regions of Ukraine[1] the situation is quite similar and the balance of trust and distrust is positive. It stands out somewhat against the background of the rest of the East, where 51% trust and 45% do not trust. In other regions, trust somewhat more - 58-62% against 35-38% who do not trust.   

Graph2. Trust in President V. Zelenskyi in the regional dimension

Previously, KIIS published other results of the same survey, according to which 54% of Ukrainians believe that the West sincerely wants an acceptable result for Ukraine, and 38%, on the contrary, believed that the West is tired of Ukraine and is pushing for an unfair peace[2].

It is worth noting that those who believe that the West wants a just peace for Ukraine trust the President more - 69% of them trust against 29% who do not trust. Серед тих, хто вважає інакше, та тих, хто не зміг відповісти на це запитання, 50% і 47% відповідно довіряють Президенту. Не довіряють – 48% і 42%.

If we combine the answers to both questions, we can get a matrix of perception of the current context. At one survey will be those who have despaired of the West and at the same time do not trust the President - 18% of them currently. At the opposite survey - those who believe in supporting the West and trust the President - currently 37%. Between them are people with intermediate positions, mostly this combination trusts the President who has become disillusioned with the West or vice versa. Such a matrix of perception is related to other important views. For example, in the question of readiness for territorial concessions (the subject of one of the upcoming press releases), those who are most ready for them are those who are skeptical of the West and critical of the President. Those who believe in the West and trust the President are most against.

Graph3. Confidence in President V. Zelenskyi in terms of the perception of the West's policy towards Ukraine

Sometimes the indicators of different sociological companies, published around the same period, give slightly different indicators of trust. This also happens with data from the same company with studies for different customers. Usually, the obtained indicators are affected by the wording of the question. In this survey, respondents could choose the options "Trust" or "Don't trust", and the option "Difficult to say" was not offered and the interviewers marked it only if the respondents themselves asked for it (we also note that we asked about the trust in "V. Zelenskyi", not "President" as an institution). Other surveys sometimes use a different wording, where the respondent is offered an "intermediate" option of "both trusting and not trusting". For example, recently The Economist published an article, which, among other things, mentioned the data of surveys regularly conducted by KIIS for NDI, according to which the trust in President V. Zelensky during the invasion decreased from 90% to 45%.

Table 1. Effect of the difference in the wording of questions on trust indicators

* Since trust was about the same in May 2024, the table shows the more recent CPI data for September 2024 for comparison with the NDI data (which is currently for May).

Just in this case (in May 2024), indeed 45% said that they trust the President (and indeed during the period of the invasion, the dynamics of trust is downward after the initial sharp increase), but at the same time, 26% said that they "both trust and do not trust". Do not trust - 28%. The trust-distrust balance remains positive (there are significantly more trusters than non-trusters). But in fact, about a quarter of Ukrainians approve of the activity in some respects, and in some respects they do not, and depending on the context and current events, they sway more toward trust, then more toward distrust. If there is no such position in the questionnaire, then the respondents choose the option "Trust" or "Do not trust". Indeed, if half of these 26% choose the option "trust" and half - "do not trust", then we get that 45% + 13% = 58% trust, and 28% + 13% = 41% do not trust. These indicators are already quite close to the results of KIIS' own research and show that trust in V. Zelenskyi has been more or less stable since May 2024 (however, against the background of a dynamic situation with internal and external high-profile events, it may fluctuate noticeably). Note that only data obtained using exactly the same wording of the question in all the surveys being compared should be used to study the dynamics (in graph 1, we have provided data obtained using completely identical questions).

A. Hrushetskyi, comments on the survey results:

In Ukraine, there is currently a fairly high level of trust in President V. Zelenskyi, especially taking into account the difficulties of wartime, the uncertain future, and the possible individual unsuccessful actions of the ruling team. At the same time, the situation is very dynamic and already a significant part of the population swings from trust to distrust depending on current events and decisions of the President and his team.

It is clear that many aspects of the internal and external situation are beyond the control of the President and his team, but in order to maintain the current indicators of trust and legitimacy in general, it is necessary to maintain transparent and sincere communication with society. At the same time, society – journalists, opposition politicians, public activists, public figures, ordinary citizens, etc. – should be tuned to constructive interaction (recall that the majority of Ukrainians are not against criticism of the government, but within constructive limits[3]). The survival of Ukraine and Ukrainians depends to a large extent on maintaining the controllability and legitimacy of state institutions (which are, of course, imperfect, but which we have now and which still work), so it is necessary to set priorities - devastating attacks and the destruction of trust in a specific person with the risk of sinking the state into chaos? Should we still postpone the disputes (at least freeze them for the future) and act together to ensure repulsion of the insidious aggressor? Hopefully, the answer is obvious.

Annex 1. Formulation of questions from the questionnaire

To what extent do you trust or not trust Volodymyr Zelenskyi?