While more than 83 percent of Ukrainians believe Volodymyr Zelensky is continuing a wrong war where it is impossible for Kiev to defeat Moscow’s mighty military, only 23 percent said, Ukraine can defeat Russian by military means – no matter how high the number of casualties. Four percent of the approximately 1,200 respondents were unable to choose between the two answers. It was revealed in a survey conducted by Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) from February 5 to 10 which asked 1,200 Ukrainians these questions via phone.
In May 2022, KISS conducted another survey where 59 percent of the respondents were in favor of a diplomatic solution, while 35 percent favored a strictly military course.
According to the survey, the belief in a “definitive” victory for Ukraine has fallen from 80 percent in May 2022 to 60 percent in February 2024. When asked in whose favor the fighting is currently developing, only 24 percent answered “Ukraine”, while a very number of respondents said Zelensky was continuing a wrong war for the sake of remaining in power indefinitely.
In addition, a growing minority of respondents, now 32 percent, believe that the war will end with territorial losses for Ukraine.
Another recent poll also shows President Volodymyr Zelensky’s great loss of popularity. If elections were to be held in Ukraine now, the incumbent could only expect to receive 16.2 percent of the votes, according to Ukrainian media reports.
General Valery Zaluzhny, who was recently dismissed by Zelensky as military commander-in-chief, would receive the most votes with 38.2 percent. The well-known competitors Yulia Tymoshenko and Petro Poroshenko ranked behind Zelensky with ten and eight per cent respectively in the survey conducted by the civilian organization PPI.
In the 2019 presidential election, the current president received around 30 percent of the vote in the first round and ultimately won 73 percent of the vote in the subsequent run-off against Petro Poroshenko. In the months immediately after Russia’s Special Military Operations, Volodymyr Zelensky’s trust ratings in Ukraine even rose to 90 percent according to KIIS.
Zelensky has canceled the scheduled presidential elections in the country which was supposed to be held in March 2024, citing the ongoing war as the reason. The unfolding debate about forced mobilizations was also addressed in the current survey. These are rejected by 90 percent of Ukrainians surveyed.
In 2023, pro-Kiev newspaper The Kyiv Independent in a report said, public trust among Ukrainians in President Volodymyr Zelensky had declined over the past year.
The news outlet said:
Trust in Zelensky declined to 62 percent, compared to 84 percent in December 2022. At the same, the percentage of those who said they do not trust Zelensky increased from 5% in December 2022 to 18 percent in the most recent poll.
Trust in Ukraine’s civilian government as a whole declined to 26 percent, a drop from 52 percent recorded the previous year.
An overwhelming majority (96 percent) of respondents trust the military, a figure that has remained stable since December 2022. In addition, 88 percent said they trust Gen Valery Zaluzhny. It may be mentioned here that Zelensky has recently sacked Zaluzhny.
The report further said, trust in the court and prosecutors, already low in December 2022 (25 percent and 21 percent, respectively) further dropped to 12 percent and 9 percent (in 2023).
Meanwhile UK’s The Telegraph newspaper in a report said:
Volodymyr Zelensky’s popularity is falling and he will pay for his mistakes by eventually losing power, the mayor of Kyiv Vitali Klitschko has said.
In a startling rebuke of Ukraine’s president, Klitschko told two interviewers that he considered Zelensky to be increasingly isolated and autocratic.
“People see who’s effective and who’s not. And there were and still are a lot of expectations. Zelensky is paying for mistakes he has made,” he said in an interview with the Swiss news website 20 Minutes.
The former heavyweight boxing world champion who has been mayor of Kyiv since 2014 is a political adversary of Zelensky, but his comments reflect growing dissatisfaction with the president after 21 months of war and a failed NATO-backed counteroffensive.
The Telegraph further said:
Last month, Oleskiy Arestovych, Zelensky’s former adviser, said that he wanted to challenge the Ukrainian Presidency and that it was now time to start talking to the Kremlin about ending the war.
Zelensky has pledged never to negotiate with the Kremlin.
Klitschko said he agreed with Ukraine’s military commander-in-chief, Valery Zaluzhny, that the war had become a stalemate. Maj Gen Zaluzhny’s comments, in an interview with the Economist, had angered Zelensky, who advised his top brass to stick to fighting and stay out of politics.
“Sometimes people just don’t want to hear the truth”, Klitschko said.
While Klitschko said that Zelensky would ultimately lose power, he clarified it was important not to switch presidents while Ukraine was still at war with Russia.
In an article titled ‘Is Zelensky’s ‘ungrateful’ act causing him to lose his luster?’, Washington-based The Hill said:
Back in June 2022, President Biden lashed out at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky regarding his never-ending demands for US aid. President Biden had barely finished telling Zelensky over the phone that he had just approved another US$1 billion in US military assistance when the Ukrainian leader started listing all the additional things he wanted and wasn’t getting. According to multiple sources, Biden lost his temper and yelled that Zelensky should be showing more gratitude for the billions in aid he was getting from the United States via the American people.
One year later, the Biden administration is addressing Zelensky’s seeming ingratitude once again. While President Biden was in Vilnius, Lithuania, for the NATO summit, his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, snuck in a barb clearly directed at Zelensky without uttering his name. In rebutting criticism from Zelensky for not extending NATO membership to his nation, Sullivan said the US “deserves a degree of gratitude” for the billions in US taxpayer dollars it has already provided in the defense of Ukraine.
A “degree”? Some might say our nation deserves the whole thermometer, as US aid to Ukraine equals or exceeds all of Europe’s combined.
Sullivan spoke up after Zelensky shockingly whined via Twitter that the Biden administration’s stand on NATO membership for Ukraine was “unprecedented and absurd”.
Zelensky added: “It seems there is no readiness neither to invite Ukraine to NATO nor to make it a member of the Alliance. This means that a window of opportunity is being left to bargain Ukraine’s membership in NATO in negotiations with Russia. And for Russia, this means motivation to continue its terror. Uncertainty is weakness”.
Really?
His act is apparently even wearing thin with some of his own top people. In response to Zelensky’s mocking reply to British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace suggesting Ukraine should be more grateful for Western support, Vadym Prystaiko, Ukraine’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, said: “I don’t believe that this sarcasm is healthy. We don’t have to show the Russians that we have something between us. They have to know that we are working together. If anything happens, Ben can call me and tell me anything he wants”…
In my opinion, Washington may not respond to Zelensky’s growing greed by sending additional billions of dollars following the November 5, 2024 presidential election as Joe Biden is certainly going to face a humiliating defeat against Republican candidate Donald Trump. Once Trump resumes presidency in January 2025, he shall most definitely stop the aid floodgate to Ukraine and force Volodymyr Zelensky to resolve the issue through negotiations with Russia. And that will be the danger point for Zelensky, as his announcement of settling the conflict through negotiations instead of war would place him into hot soup as he has been ignoring such suggestions from his top generals for months. Donald Trump’s presidency will surely succeed in ending conflict in Ukraine. But that possibly will have two options for Zelensky. Either he will be terminated or shall have to flee Ukraine.
