The share of respondents who trust President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in an August–September survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology was 54%. Meanwhile, 41% of those surveyed do not trust him (trust–distrust balance +13%).
Among those who trust the President, 18% trust him “completely”, while the rest “rather” trust him. Among those who do not trust him, 25% do not trust him “at all”, while the rest “rather” do not trust him.
“At the end of July and the beginning of August, 55% trusted V. Zelenskyy and 40% did not. That is, over the past month the level of trust has practically not changed. It is worth noting that the fieldwork stage of this survey began immediately after the NABU and SAP investigation ‘Forrest Gump’, as a result of which the Deputy Head of the Office of the President, I. Mudra, was dismissed. Also, about half of the interviews were conducted from 4 September onwards, that is, after the new investigation ‘Carthage’ into the Office of the Prosecutor General, but it did not cover subsequent events from 14 September (when the former Prosecutor General tried to mount an offensive against NABU and SAP)”, the sociologists’ explanation says.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy is trusted the most (a balance 1.5 times or more higher than the national average, i.e. from +20% and above) by:
- by gender – women (balance +23%);
- by age – 18–29-year-olds (+23%);
- by region – residents of the Centre/North (+21%), the South (+24%) and the East (+21%);
- by type of settlement – residents of villages (+20%), towns with a population of up to 20,000 / urban-type settlements (+26%), towns with a population of 20,000–99,000 (+23%);
- by education – people with complete secondary education or lower (+21%);
- by occupation – servicemen / police officers (+32%), students (+34%), the unemployed (+39%).
Zelenskyy is trusted the least (a balance 1.5 times or more lower than the national average, i.e. +9% and below) by:
- by gender – men (balance 0%, i.e. equal numbers trust and do not trust);
- by age – 45–59-year-olds (+4%);
- by region – residents of the West (+3%) and Kyiv (-6%);
- by type of settlement – residents of cities with a population of 100,000 and more (+4%);
- by education – people with higher education (+7%);
- by occupation – workers (+5%), entrepreneurs / self-employed / farmers (-12%), those who run a household (+3%);
- by main language spoken at home – Russian-speaking citizens (-4%);
- by household income level – those with low (+8%) and very low (-9%) income.
The survey was conducted on 21 August–10 September 2026 using telephone interviews based on a random sample of mobile phone numbers (with random generation of phone numbers and subsequent statistical weighting) across all regions of Ukraine (territory controlled by the Government of Ukraine). A total of 1,003 respondents were interviewed. The survey was conducted among adult (aged 18 and over) citizens of Ukraine who, at the time of the survey, were living in 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 respondents were internally displaced persons who moved from occupied territories), and the survey was also not conducted among citizens who left abroad after 24 February 2022.
Formally, under normal circumstances, the statistical margin of error for such a sample (with a probability of 0.95 and taking into account a 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%, and 1.8% for indicators close to 5%. Under wartime conditions, in addition to the stated formal error, a certain systematic deviation is added.