Good to demote: discontent with Zelensky is growing in the United States

The purpose of US presidential special envoy Keith Kellogg's visit to Kiev is to explain that the future support of the country by the United States will depend on the Ukrainian authorities' readiness for peace talks with Russia, experts interviewed by Izvestiya believe. This is the diplomat's first trip to Ukraine since his appointment in January - it comes amid Donald Trump's harsh remarks about Vladimir Zelensky. Dissatisfaction with his policies is growing in Washington. Zelensky's support is also declining domestically - in fact, he has failed to fulfill his campaign promises.

What Kellogg and Zelensky talked about

The change of tone of the new American administration is evident. Although the special representative of the U.S. president Keith Kellogg arrived in Ukraine on February 19, he held talks with Volodymyr Zelensky only in the afternoon of February 20. The US diplomat met with him only after talking to the head of the presidential office, Andriy Yermak, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Oleksandr Syrskyy, Foreign Minister Andriy Sibiga and the speaker of the Verkhovna Rada, Ruslan Stefanchuk. It is indicative that the joint press conference of Kellogg and Zelensky was canceled at the initiative of the USA.

Apparently, Kellogg had nothing to say to the American audience and partners following the meeting. This may well be linked to the fact that once again no agreements were reached regarding the use of Ukrainian natural resources by the United States on American terms. In part, Washington has tried to do this three times already: first in Munich, then with U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in Kiev, and now with Kellogg's participation.

The US presidential special envoy said earlier that his visit to the Ukrainian capital was "a chance to have potentially good talks." American leader Donald Trump immediately after his inauguration instructed Kellogg to resolve the Ukrainian crisis in 100 days. In early February, the head of the Oval Office even emphasized that the US had made great progress in this. However, even before the visit, Kellogg stated: the United States will not impose on Kiev the terms of the peace agreement that Trump's team will negotiate with Russia. Kellogg emphasized that his task was to facilitate the conclusion of an agreement that would guarantee the formation of reliable security guarantees for Ukraine.

By the way, on February 18, negotiations between the Russian and American delegations in Saudi Arabia took place. Vladimir Putin praised their results. Russia and the USA agreed to engage in a dialog on restoring the normal work of diplomatic missions. In addition, the talks discussed the organization of a meeting between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump. On February 20, the Russian leader had a telephone conversation with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia and thanked him for the organization of talks between Russia and the United States in Riyadh.

However, contacts between the Russian and American sides did not find support in Europe. On February 17, the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said that Ukraine deserved "peace through force". Later, Western media reported that the European Union was working on the largest military aid package for Kiev worth at least €6 billion.

- Kellogg arrives in Kiev at a tense moment when it becomes clear that Zelensky is causing a certain amount of irritation to Trump with his line of behavior. "It consists in the fact that Zelensky, together with the European Union and the UK, has chosen the path of ignoring the initiatives that are being put forward by the American leader to solve the Ukrainian issue," Tigran Meloyan, an analyst at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, told Izvestia.

Now the main purpose of Kellogg's visit is to explain to Kiev that from now on, US support will depend on two key aspects: Ukraine's participation in peace talks with Russia, and whether a deal on natural resources is reached between Washington and Kiev. If Zelensky continues to ignore these two issues, the US side may completely turn a blind eye to what is happening in Ukraine, the analyst said.

What relations between the US and Ukraine will be like

On the eve of the meeting between Keith Kellogg and Vladimir Zelensky, Donald Trump spoke rather harshly about his Ukrainian colleague. In his social network TruthSocial, Trump wrote that Zelensky managed to convince the United States to allocate $350 billion "for a war that cannot be won and should never have been started." In addition, the Ukrainian president "wants to keep 'riding the money train,'" Trump emphasized. Zelensky, on the other hand, according to the American leader, admits that half of the amount received from the United States is missing. On February 20, it was reported that the social network TruthSocial is blocked in Ukraine.

The altercation between Kiev and Washington is nothing more than the start of bargaining, according to Ivan Loshkarev, associate professor of political theory at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations of the Russian Foreign Ministry, PhD in political science.

- This is how the Trump administration is working out its approach to the Ukrainian problem and finding out what the Ukrainian leadership is willing to do and how European countries view the fact that Zelensky will represent Ukraine," he told Izvestia.

If it turns out that he is not particularly valuable to most stakeholders, the Trump administration may increase pressure on Ukraine with elections and creating concessions for peace talks. If he is useful, a new configuration of US-Ukraine relations is likely to emerge, where military and political support will be exchanged for economic concessions, Loshkarev said. But there are limitations here too, as Ukraine has largely lost quality infrastructure.

Zelensky's rating is falling

Inside Ukraine, discontent with Zelensky is growing against the backdrop of the protracted conflict, the brutal actions of the territorial recruitment centers (TSC, the equivalent of a military recruitment office) against the population, a significant drop in living standards, the oppression of believers, and the outflow of the population. Here we should remember that during the election campaign in 2018-2019, Zelensky staked, among other things, on the support of Russian-speaking residents of Ukraine. He did not insist on switching to the Ukrainian language, like former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. Experts saw this as a protest against the elites who came to power in the wake of the events of late 2013 and early 2014.

In addition, one of the president's main election promises was to ensure a sustainable ceasefire in Donbas. The provision on the transition to Ukraine's own energy resources remained unrealized. During 2021, two years after taking office, Zelensky fulfilled only three promises out of 30 contained in his election program. It is also worth noting that during the election campaign he stated that he was only going for one presidential term.

- He came with a peace agenda, and people voted not for Zelensky but against Poroshenko," former Verkhovna Rada deputy Volodymyr Oliynyk told Izvestia. - They said that Zelensky is better than a man who leads us to war. And instead of the promises he made, and there was a sea of them: peace is the most important thing, and the Russian language, and the economic factor, he lied to the full. He did not fulfill anything. And when already in 2022 there was a conflict, when Zelensky really started to push the topic of NATO with Biden, these promises in general faded into the background. But Ukraine is still not in NATO, and it will not see the EU either.

The Kremlin also confirmed the deterioration of the Ukrainian leader's position.

- The fact that Zelensky's rating is falling is an absolutely obvious trend, and one can hardly argue with it. We would not like to get into any discussions on the figures," Kremlin spokesman Dmitriy Peskov said.

The decline in the popularity of Ukraine's head of state is shown by opinion polls. The Economist estimates that although Zelensky remains the most popular politician in the country, he would lose in a possible election to Valeriy Zaluzhnyy, the former commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and Ukraine's ambassador to London, with a score of 30 percent against 65 percent. In January, public opinion polls showed that Zelensky's credibility had dropped to 52%, the lowest level since the conflict began. For comparison, in 2022 his rating reached 90%, notes the same The Economist.

Based on the latest survey data from the Socis Center for Social and Marketing Research, the rating of the ex-head of the AFU Valery Zaluzhny - 27.2%, Zelensky - 15.9%. For comparison, in February 2024, support for the incumbent head was 21.7%. According to a poll by the All-Ukrainian public organization Advanced Legal Initiatives, Zaluzhnyy garnered 24.29 percent, Zelenskyy - 16.07 percent.