Around 63% of Ukrainians approve of Volodymyr Zelensky’s actions as a president, according to a survey carried out by the Identity and Borders in Flux: The case of Ukraine (IBIF) project in partnership with the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) and published on Feb. 19.
The poll was published shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump alleged that Zelensky holds a “4% approval rating” without providing a source to back his claim. Soon after, Trump dubbed Zelensky as a “dictator.”
The survey was conducted between November 2024 and January 2025 with the participation of 1,600 respondents. The IBIF project is primarily funded by the British Academy, with additional funding from ZOiS and George Washington University’s Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies.
Some 26.1% of Ukrainians said they fully approve of Zelensky, while another 36.9% said they tend to approve of him. The overall figure is higher than in polls conducted before Russia’s full-scale invasion and in the spring of 2024.
The poll showed that 14.4% fully disapprove of Zelensky’s actions as a president, while 18.3% said they tend to disapprove of him.
A total of 73% of respondents said they could call Zelensky an “intelligent person,” while 63% called him a “strong leader.”
Zelensky remains the most popular Ukrainian politician, leading in polls for the future presidential election, KIIS wrote.
Around 26%-32% of Ukrainians are ready to vote for Zelensky in the first round, according to the survey. Zelensky significantly outpaces his predecessor, businessman and lawmaker Petro Poroshenko, who polled at 5%-6%.
“A potential contender in a run-off could be a popular military figure General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, former сommander-in-сhief and current Ukrainian ambassador to the U.K., but he has not voiced publicly any political ambitions,” KIIS said.
Another KIIS poll published on Feb. 19 showed that, as of February, around 57% of Ukrainians trust Zelensky, an increase of five percentage points since December.
Ukraine was to hold the presidential election in the spring of 2024 but the vote was postponed due to Russia’s full-scale invasion. The Ukrainian constitution does not permit elections during martial law.
Russia has sought to use this to undermine Zelensky’s legitimacy as president, a narrative more recently promoted by Trump.
Trump Blows Up After Onslaught of Devastating Polls
Trump posted through the pain after a series of devastating national polls showed his approval rating quickly plummeting after his first month in office.
“I won the Presidential Election in a landslide, won ALL SEVEN SWING STATES, THE POPULAR VOTE, AND ALL FIFTY STATES SHIFTED REPUBLICAN, a record, and now I have the best polling numbers I’ve ever had,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Friday, seemingly in response to the news this week. “The Democrats, run by broken down losers like James Carville, whose weak of mind and body, are going crazy, and just don’t know what to do. They have lost their confidence and spirit – They have lost their minds! We are going to have big WINS for our Country, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN. It’s already happening, and will get bigger and better than ever before!”
A CNN poll published Thursday found that just 47 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s performance, while 52 percent disapprove. Moreover, 55 percent of respondents don’t think he’s focused enough on the most pressing issues in the U.S., and 62 percent don’t think he’s done enough to bring the costs of common goods down.
The Washington Post and Gallup released similarly negative results this week. The Post-Ipsos poll found that 57 percent of Americans thought that Trump was “exceeding his authority” and that 48 percent opposed his actions outright. Gallup’s poll showed that 51 percent of Americans disapproved of Trump.
According to CNN, about half the country (52 percent) also thinks Trump has gone too far with his executive power, and about half (48 percent) think he’s gone too far with the federal purge and DOGE overhaul. If this is how Trump is reacting to mostly normal polling numbers in month one, there’s no telling how he’ll be reacting to criticism after a year or two.
Carville told Sean Hannity on Thursday that Democrats only lost the 2024 election by a point-and-a-half despite nominating their “seventh-string quarterback,” in former Vice President Kamala Harris, and should not panic.
“I’m telling the Democrats, just sit there, play possum, let him go, let him go, let him go. Poll numbers are declining. The collapse is already underway. Let’s see when they put the Medicaid budget, when they put the tax — the $4.5 billion — trillion dollars of tax cuts to wealthy people. Just let the ball come to you. We don’t need to be aggressive now,” Carville said.