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

From December 2 to 17, 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 in the President (in two different formulations). 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 (the territory controlled by the Government of Ukraine), 2,000 respondents were interviewed (half of the respondents were asked the question in one wording, half in another wording). The survey was conducted with adult (aged 18 and older) citizens of Ukraine who, at the time of the survey, lived in the territory of Ukraine controlled by the Government of Ukraine. The sample did not include residents of territories temporarily not controlled by the Ukrainian authorities (at the same time, some of the respondents are IDPs who moved from occupied territories), and the survey was not conducted with citizens who left abroad after February 24, 2022.

Formally, under normal circumstances, the statistical error of a sample of about 1,000 respondents (since half of the respondents answered each option of the trust question) (with a probability of 0.95 and taking into account the design effect of 1.3) did not exceed 4.1% for indicators close to 50%, 3.5% for indicators close to 25%, 2.5% for indicators close to 10%, 1.8% 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 may affect the quality of results in "wartime" conditions were previously cited by KIIS.

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

KIIS regularly monitors attitudes towards various public institutions and subjects, in particular, towards the President of Ukraine. 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 backdrop of a full-scale invasion).

At the same time, even in seemingly “simple” questions such as trust in the President, both the wording and the scale of possible answers (and other factors such as the survey method, the order of questions in the questionnaire, etc.) actually have a significant impact. That is why the media often shows quite different results regarding trust in the President, which can lead to misunderstandings and misinterpretation of public opinion.

In our own survey, which we conducted in December 2024, we conducted an experiment where half of the respondents were asked the question about trust in the President in one formulation, and the other half in another (split-sample). Below, we first present the dynamics of trust in the formulation that was regularly asked during the full-scale invasion. Next, we present the results of our other question, which we ask every year in December to assess the dynamics of trust in institutions.

So, first we present the results for the question, which was as follows: “To what extent do you trust or distrust Volodymyr Zelenskyi?” The respondent could choose one of the options that were read out: “do not trust at all”, “rather do not trust”, “rather trust”, “completely trust”. The option “hard to say” was not read out, but respondents could ask to mark it on their own initiative (i.e. when the respondent himself answers the interviewer that he cannot choose from the 4 proposed options and it is difficult for him to decide).

The graph below shows the dynamics of trust in President V. Zelenskyi from 2019 to December 2024. It is worth focusing on the dynamics of trust during the year, that is, in the period from December 2023 to December 2024. At the end of 2023, 77% trusted the President, but by February 2024, trust decreased to 64%, and by May 2024, to 59% (at the same time, the share of those who do not trust increased from 22% to 36% during the specified period). By October 2024, the situation stabilized, but between October and December 2024, the level of trust began to decline again, although not so much due to those who do not trust, but to those who have an uncertain attitude towards the President (i.e., between October and December, uncertainty, not distrust, increased primarily).

As of December 2024, 52% of Ukrainians trusted President V. Zelenskyi, 39% did not trust him. The remaining 9% responded that they could not decide on their attitude. Although trust indicators have worsened over the year, the balance of trust-distrust remains positive – +13%.

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

"To what extent do you trust or distrust Volodymyr Zelenskyi?"

In all regions of Ukraine[1] the situation is quite similar and the balance of trust-distrust is positive. The attitude towards the President is somewhat better in the West (balance of trust-distrust +27%) and in the Center (+13%). In the South and East, the trust indicators are also quite high, but slightly lower and the balance of trust-distrust in these regions is close to 0 (i.e., approximately the same proportion of people trust and do not trust).

Graph 2. Trust in President V. Zelenskyi in the regional dimension

Trust in the President is much more strongly linked not to the region of residence, but to the level of optimism. KIIS previously published the results of a survey on how optimistic Ukrainians are about the future and how they assess unity in society[2]. According to one classification, 50% of Ukrainians can be classified as consistent or rather consistent optimists, and 23% as consistent or rather consistent pessimists. The remaining 27% have conflicting or uncertain views on the future and unity of Ukrainians. Graph 3 shows how these categories of the population feel about President Volodymyr Zelenskyi.

Thus, among pessimists, 57% do not trust the President, while 31% do. Among those who have uncertain or conflicting views on the future of Ukraine, 42% trust him, compared to 49% who do not. In contrast, among optimists, 67% trust the President, while 26% do not trust him.

Graph 3. Trust in President V. Zelensky in terms of the level of optimism

At the same time, we call for caution in the interpretation of the causal relationship. On the one hand, it can be assumed that lower trust or disappointment in the President can lead a person to pessimistic assessments of the future. On the other hand, the effect can be the opposite - increasing pessimistic views on the future of the country can also lead to a more gloomy view of the activities of the authorities. It cannot be ruled out that there is another third factor that simultaneously affects both trust in the authorities and the level of optimism (for example, successes or lack thereof on the battlefield). However, in any case, the connection is obvious and important for the correct interpretation of public moods in the country.

As noted, the sample of our research was divided into two halves (into two representative subsamples). So far, we have talked about the results of the survey of the first half of the sample. The question was read to the second half of the respondents as follows: “Now I will name some social institutions and public figures. Please tell me how much you trust those whom I will name.” The respondent was immediately offered the following options: “completely trust”, “rather trust”, “hard to say”, “rather do not trust”, “completely do not trust”. That is, the respondent immediately heard and knew that he could choose “hard to say” among the possible options. Below is the dynamics of trust in the President according to the question with this wording in 2021-2024.

As shown above, when we read out the “hard to say” option, the proportion of those who choose it increases to 24% (compared to 9%). At the same time, the proportion of those who trust and those who do not trust decreases. So, in this case, the level of trust is 45%, and distrust is 31%.

It is important that regardless of the wording of the question, we see similar trends over the past year, as well as a similar situation at the moment. Thus, in the first wording, the balance of trust-distrust was +13%, in the second wording (see the graph below) - +14%. That is, in terms of the trust / distrust ratio, the situation is very close and in both cases shows a predominance of those who trust.

At the same time, in both cases we see a decline in trust over the past year, and even to a roughly similar extent. So, in the case of the first formulation, 52% now trust, in December 2023 77% trusted, so the current indicator is 68% of the 2023 indicator (or in other words, the current indicator is a third lower than it was a year ago). In the case of the second formulation (which we consider in this paragraph), the current indicator is 73% of the 2023 indicator (or more than a quarter lower). Now the order of decline is quite close regardless of how we formulate the question).

However, these two formulations enrich the understanding of the state of trust in the President. Yes, now there are still more people who trust him than do not, although the trend is indeed downward. At the same time, there is a quarter of citizens whose trust is “on the borderline”, since they trust in some things and not in others (an illustrative example is approval of activities in the international arena along with criticism of domestic actions). Therefore, these citizens are very hesitant and context-dependent (i.e., they depend on specific events that are discussed in the media during the survey).

Graph 4. Dynamics of trust in President V. Zelenskyi during 2021-2024 (when the respondent is also offered the option “hard to say”)

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A. Hrushetskyi, comments on the survey results:

In the issue of trust in the President, we as sociologists see a "temptation" on the part of a number of public figures to resort to merciless and uncompromising criticism (especially from those who either "feel" the election approaching (even if this is objectively not the case), as well as from individual public activists or journalists who are more concerned with their "niche" than with the desire for the country's progress).

For our part, we remind you that in the conditions of a full-scale war, the President is not only “one of the politicians” operating in the country, but also the personification of a critically important public institution. The weakening of trust in V. Zelenskyi indeed reduces his future potential and weight as a public figure, but also deals critical blows to the institution of the President, which may lead to a loss of controllability. It is hardly worth explaining further what disasters can happen in the event of delegitimization and collapse of the controllability of the institution of the President and the government in general. However, unfortunately, a number of public figures in Ukraine demonstrate supposedly patriotic behavior, but behind which the formula “my hatred for V. Zelenskyi is higher than my love for Ukraine” is clearly visible to the naked eye.

Our survey in May 2024 showed that Ukrainians are much wiser on this issue. Yes, individual unsuccessful or erroneous steps of the authorities should be criticized, that is, few people talk about the need to be silent or introduce censorship. At the same time, the majority of Ukrainians believe that criticism should be within constructive frameworks. This is exactly the case when Vox populi Vox Dei (“voice of the people is the voice of God”) and it would be good if Ukrainian subjects adhered to it.

Annex 1. Formulation of questions from the questionnaire

SAMPLE А: How much do you trust or distrust Volodymyr Zelenskyi?

SAMPLE Б:Now I will name some social institutions and public figures. Please tell me how much you trust those whom I will name.