61% of Ukrainians surveyed trust Zelensky, according to KMIS
4 February 10:23
61% of Ukrainians continue to trust Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, while 33% do not trust him, with a balance of trust and distrust standing at 28%. This is according to the results of a poll conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) on January 23-29, 2026, as reported by "Komersant Ukrainian".
“Currently, the majority of Ukrainians – 61% – continue to trust the president, while 33% do not. The balance of trust and distrust is 28%. In mid-January 2026, the figures were almost identical. At the same time, among the 61% who trust the president, 25% trust him “completely.” The remaining 36% “rather” trust him (and among the 33% who do not trust him, 17% “completely” do not trust him, and 16% “rather” do not trust him),” according to a statement by KIIS based on the results of the survey on its website on Wednesday.
The KIIS noted that an experiment was conducted during the survey. Half of the respondents were asked a direct question about how much they personally trust or distrust Zelensky. The other half of the respondents were asked a question using the “imaginary acquaintance” method, i.e., an abstract person who could freely express their opinion regardless of the circumstances, which created certain conditions of anonymity and, accordingly, objectivity for the respondents to assess their moods.
It turned out that in both cases, the president enjoys a high level of trust, but the level of trust is lower when using the “imaginary acquaintance” method—53% versus 61% when asking a direct question.
“Accordingly, we can assume that the real level of trust in V. Zelensky is somewhat lower than what the polls show. However, the question remains as to why this is happening – is it due to fear of criticizing the president or for some other reason? Our cautious assumption is that it is less about fear of criticism,” sociologists note. “A more significant reason, in our opinion, is that some people in the survey give a ‘patriotic’ answer. That is, people may criticize the president and be dissatisfied with his actions. But since there is an awareness of the need to unite in the current war period, in the survey they will say that “yes, we trust our president.” And when we ask these same people about the views of a ‘thoughtful acquaintance’, this factor (‘statist’ position) plays a lesser role and we get a slightly different assessment of trust,” the report says.
According to the survey results, half of the respondents (48%) believe that there are real experts among the current authorities and that they can remain in power after the war. At the same time, slightly fewer (42%) consider the current authorities to be completely discredited and argue that none of its representatives should remain in power after the war. It is noted that the more respondents trust the president, the more (as expected) among them are those who believe that there are worthy representatives among the current government who can remain in power after the war.
Regarding the assessment of democracy in the country, respondents expressed the following opinions: 36% believe that there is as much democracy in the country as there should be in a state of war. Another 16% believe that there is even too much democracy. At the same time, a third of Ukrainians (35%) believe that there is not enough democracy at present. The remaining 14% were unable to decide on their opinion. It should be noted that few people mentioned the absence of elections (only 1%). Also, since the issue of mobilization is sensitive, it should be noted that only 6% of the total population believe that there is not enough democracy in the country and explain this by the actions of the TCC.
Commenting on the study, Anton Hrushetsky, executive director of KIIS, noted that “Zelenskyy retains high public confidence and, accordingly, is a legitimate head of state. In particular, few of our respondents believed that there is not enough democracy in Ukraine and at the same time spoke about the absence of elections. That is, there is currently no public demand for national elections to be held as soon as possible.”
He also stated that “the priority remains to end the war on terms acceptable to Ukraine, and Zelensky is, in the eyes of the majority of the public, the leader who must bring peace to the country. Of course, different people may have different motivations. For some, holding any elections is a destructive process for Ukraine, which will only undermine its defense capabilities. Therefore, even despite criticism of Zelensky, maintaining institutional stability is more important, and so these people are willing to “tolerate” him as head of state until the end of the war.”
At the same time, the situation is certainly not “cloudless” for the president. Much of the trust in him is a reflection of the “statist” position mentioned earlier (this is in addition to a fairly high level of distrust—after all, a third of Ukrainians do not trust him). Therefore, we see that the same people may now “trust” the president and oppose elections, but at the same time say that after the war they do not want to see anyone from the current government in leadership positions. In other words, criticism is accumulating – as is a certain “fatigue.” And this is against the backdrop of the emergence of a new generation of leaders among military personnel and volunteers, whom many (even the majority, most likely!) consider worthy of leading the country in the future. Therefore, the demand for new leaders after the war is quite expected,” Hrushetsky emphasized.
KMIS conducted its own nationwide public opinion poll, which included questions about trust in President Zelensky, perceptions of the prospects for the Ukrainian government, and the state of democracy in Ukraine. The method used was computer-assisted telephone interviews (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 controlled by the Ukrainian government). The sample consisted of 1,003 respondents. The survey was conducted among adult (aged 18 and older) citizens of Ukraine who, at the time of the survey, were residing in the territory of Ukraine controlled by the Ukrainian government. The sample did not include residents of territories temporarily not controlled by the Ukrainian government (at the same time, some of the respondents were IDPs who had moved from the occupied territories), and the survey was not conducted with citizens who had left the country 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 4.1%.
