Ukrainians' trust in Zelensky is falling. And here's why

After the decision to subordinate anti-corruption agencies and the subsequent protests in Ukraine, the confidence rating of President Vladimir Zelensky has dropped significantly. The foreign press notes that it will be difficult to restore the shattered trust in the head of state. Whether this means the decline of Zelensky's political career and whether he can count on the support of European leaders is in the Izvestia article.

Rating drop

• A survey by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology showed the lowest level of trust in the President of Ukraine in six months, falling from 67% in early summer to 58%. The survey was conducted after July 22, when Zelensky signed a law on subordination of anti-corruption bodies to the Prosecutor General appointed by the President of Ukraine. Soon after, protests began in the country, European leaders sharply condemned the actions of the Ukrainian leader, and he was forced to withdraw the law, replacing it with a new one.

• Foreign analysts suggest that the rating of the president of Ukraine will continue to decline as discontent with corruption and forced mobilization grows in the country. Among those who express distrust of Zelensky, 21% cited corruption in the country as the reason, while 20% were dissatisfied with his activities in connection with the conflict with Russia.

Position and strength: how will the situation at the front affect the negotiations on Ukraine

Russian troops have liberated significant territories, putting the Ukrainian Armed Forces in danger of losing strategically important cities.

• Ukrainian society also criticizes Zelensky's desire to concentrate all power in his hands and remove competitors before possible elections. Among the possible candidates for the post of president of Ukraine, the highest rating remains with the former head of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhny, whom Zelensky removed from office and appointed ambassador to the UK (we talked about why Zaluzhny's candidacy suits both Ukrainians and the West here).

A trail of corruption scandals

• As long as anti-corruption organizations dealt with Ukrainian oligarchs, their work was beneficial to the Ukrainian government. The rare earth metals deal that Ukraine concluded with the United States involved access to mining sites that were already owned by Ukrainian businessmen and oligarchs. The only way to return these lands to the Ukrainian treasury was to detain the "undesirables" in corruption cases and confiscate their "illegally obtained" property.

• Recently, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (SAPO) have actually become a tool for combating non-systemic corruption or conducting show trials and have themselves been involved in corruption scandals. The 2024 survey showed that the number of Ukrainians who are confident that bribery in the country is on the rise increased by 7.9% compared to the previous year.

Figures and speeches: will replacing Zelensky with Zaluzhny bring Ukraine closer to peace

And why is the West going to rearrange the pawns in the Kiev leadership

• At the same time, NABU and SAP, created under the supervision and financing of Ukraine's Western partners, have never been under the control of the president's office, which was an annoying factor: Zelensky has already tried to promote initiatives to limit the work of NABU. But in their latest investigations, officials from the close circle of the head of state began to appear.

Forced mobilization

• Violent mobilization is an important factor of social tension in Ukraine. Employees of territorial recruitment centers (TCCs) have received broad powers from the authorities and regularly become participants in scandals involving the illegal detention and beating of conscripts and women who stand up for them. The prevalence of the problem is evidenced by the fact that the neologism "busification", that is, the forced pushing of conscripts into a minibus ("busik") has become the most popular word of 2024 in Ukraine. Military mobilization is condemned in European countries, but so mildly that the Ukrainian authorities allow themselves not to notice it.

• The Ukrainian authorities did not react even after a Ukrainian who also had Hungarian citizenship died during the forced mobilization. Hungary summoned the Ukrainian ambassador and protested the death of a conscripted man from Transcarpathia as a result of a beating by TCC staff, but Ukraine did not properly investigate the incident. On August 7, the State Bureau of Investigation of Ukraine announced that it had been conducting an investigation from the very beginning and no signs of violent death had been found.

What does this mean?

• The decline in the rating of the president of Ukraine was noted earlier, but now criticism of Zelensky is also heard among the liberal establishment of Western countries. At the same time, experts doubt that the European Union is interested in changing the Ukrainian leader. The July protests once again demonstrated to Zelensky that foreign allies have leverage beyond financial ones.

• For the Ukrainian population, Zelensky has become another president who has not fulfilled his promises. He did not resolve the conflict with Russia, did not improve the standard of living, during his rule corruption became even more frightening, and people are kept in fear by security forces and employees of the shopping mall. At the same time, it is not necessary to expect obvious popular indignation in the form of protests and demonstrations, since they are all directed from abroad, and Zelensky's candidacy completely suits Kiev's foreign partners due to his dependence on them and the forced fulfillment of the will of the leaders of Western countries.

During the preparation of the material, Izvestia interviewed:

• political scientist, HSE Professor Marat Bashirov;
• Vladimir Zhirikhin, a political scientist and deputy director of the Institute of CIS Countries.