The press release was prepared by Anton Hrushetskyi, executive director of KIIS

During February 5-10, 2024, the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) conducted an all-Ukrainian public opinion survey "Omnibus", which included questions about the possible resignation of V. Zaluzhnyi. Bythemethodofcomputer-assistedtelephoneinterviews(CATI) based on a random sample of mobile phone numbers (with random generation of phone numbers and subsequent statistical weighting), 1,202 respondents living in all regions of Ukraine (except AR of Crimea) were interviewed. 874 interviews were conducted up to and including February 8, that is, before the resignation of V. Zaluzhnyi. The remaining 328 interviews were conducted after the resignation on February 9 and 10. The survey was conducted with adult (aged 18 and older) citizens of Ukraine who, at the time of the survey, lived on the territory of Ukraine (within the boundaries controlled by the authorities of Ukraine until February 24, 2022). The sample did not include residents of territories that were temporarily not controlled by the authorities of Ukraine, and the survey was not conducted with citizens abroad.

Formally, under normal circumstances, the statistical error of such a sample (with a probability of 0.95 and taking into account the design effect of 1.1) did not exceed 3.2% for indicators close to 50%, 2.7% for indicators close to 25%, 2.1% - for indicators close to 10%, 1.4% - for indicators close to 5%.

Under conditions of war, in addition to the specified formal error, a certain systematic deviation is added. KIIS previously cited factors that can affect the quality of results in "wartime" conditions.

In general, we believe that the obtained results are still highly representative for the population of Ukraine living in the territory under the control of the Government, and allow a fairly reliable analysis of the public moods of the population.

In Ukraine, the share of those who believe that affairs are developing in the right direction continues to decrease, and compared to December 2023, now for the first time there are more people who believe that the direction of affairs is wrong. Thus, in December 2023, 54% considered the direction of affairs to be right, and now the indicator has decreased to 44%. On the other hand, from 32% in December 2023 to 46% in February 2024, more people believe that the direction of affairs is wrong.

Graph 1. In your opinion, affairs in Ukraine are developing in the wrong or right direction?

Residents of Western Ukraine are more critical, where 55% consider the direction of affairs to be wrong, against 35% who consider it right. In other regions, there are slightly more people who believe that the direction of affairs is right.

Graph2. Direction of affairs in the regional dimension

Respondents were asked the question "To what extent do you trust or not trust the following Ukrainian public figures?" If you don't know him or her, say so.", where the respondents had to choose "completely do not trust", "rather do not trust", "rather trust" and "completely trust". The "difficult to say" option was not read, but it could be marked if the respondent himself insisted on it. In a similar formulation, we asked this question in December 2023, which allows us to assess the dynamics of trust in various actors. The graph below compares current levels of trust with what they were in December 2023 (for those interested in the dynamics compared to May 2022, you can read the previous press release[1]).

Among the 13 figures on the list, most Ukrainians trust V. Zaluzhnyi - 94% trust him and only 5% do not trust him (compared to December, the situation has practically not changed).

Also, the majority of Ukrainians trust (to a roughly similar extent) K. Budanov, V. Zelenskyi, S. Prytula and (with separate comments) O. Syrskyi. Thus, trust in the head of the GUR is 66% (and this indicator has increased from 60% in December, while the share of those who do not trust has almost not changed - 19% now and 20% in December). Trust in V. Zelenskyi is 64% compared to 77% in December (distrust at the same time increased from 22% in December to 35% in February). S. Prytula is trusted by 61%, and in his case there is also a decrease in trust (from 69% in December, distrust increased from 25% to 33%).

Separately, it is worth paying attention to the trust in the new Commander-in-Chief O. Syrskyi. Formally, among all respondents, 40% trust him, 21% do not trust him, and 4% have an uncertain attitude. However, 35% did not know him in February (and 48% did not know him in December). Counting among those who know him, in February 62% trust him, 33% do not trust him. In December, the ratio was 63% against 29%, that is, compared to December, the attitude towards him has practically not changed.

The former Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada D. Razumkov has a trust-distrust balance close to 0, that is, he is trusted by approximately the same number of people who do not trust him. So, as of February, 35% trust him (an increase from 25% compared to December), 33% do not trust him (in December it was 37%), and 5% have an uncertain attitude. At the same time, 27% do not know him.

The following seven people have a negative trust-distrust balance, that is, they are not trusted more than they are trusted (and in all cases at least half of Ukrainians do not trust them). Thus, 45% trust the mayor of Kyiv V. Klychko, 51% do not trust him. Trust has fallen from 52% in December, while distrust has risen from 43%.

The head of the Office of the President A. Yermak is trusted by 27% (in December it was 33%), 61% do not trust him (51% did not trust him in December). Former President P. Poroshenko is trusted by 31%, his rate increased from 27% in December. At the same time, the level of distrust does not change - 68% now and 68% in December.

And finally, the four actors with the lowest trust indicators. So, 7% trust MP M. Bezuhla, 65% do not. 10% trust Yu. Boiko, 73% do not trust him (almost unchanged compared to December). Yu. Tymoshenko is trusted by 17%, not trusted by 82% (at the same time, the ex-prime minister improved her indicators, in December the ratio was 10% against 87%). 11% trust O. Arestovych now, 83% do not trust him (also almost unchanged over the past two months).

Graph3. To what extent do you trust or not trust the following Ukrainian public figures? If you don't know him or her, say so.

Ranked by trust-distrust balance (difference between % of those who trust and % of those who do not trust)

The survey was conducted during the period of V. Zaluzhnyi's resignation. In the period of February 5-8 (before the resignation), 874 interviews were conducted, then in the period of February 9-10 (after the resignation), 328 interviews were conducted. At the beginning of February, as was shown above, V. Zelenskyi was trusted by a total of 64%, but the question is how the resignation affected the trust indicators. Below you can see how many Ukrainians trusted V. Zelenskyi in different periods.

In February 2022, before the invasion, V. Zelenskyi was trusted by 37%. After the invasion, against the background of his actions and the general "rally around the flag" effect, his trust increased sharply to 90% as of May 2022. Further, trust in V. Zelenskyi in the period between May 2022 and December 2023, i.e. in a year and a half, decreased by 13 percentage points from 90% to 77%. In the following two months to the beginning of February, he lost another 12 percentage points - trust dropped from 77% to 65%. Immediately after the resignation of V. Zaluzhnyi, trust decreased by another 5 percentage points to 60%. Thus, in general, for the period of February 5-10, 64% trust V. Zelenskyi, but at the end of this period, the indicator is 60%.

Graph 4. Dynamics of trust in V. Zelenskyi during February 2022 (before the invasion)-February 2024

In table 1 below, the current level of trust in actors is shown in % of all respondents in the regional section, and in table 2 - in % of those who know the relevant actor.

Table 1. Trust in political, military, public figures in the regional dimension, % among all respondents

Table 2. Trust in political, military, public figures in the regional dimension, % among respondents who know the relevant figure

A. Hrushetskyi, comments on the survey results:

The period between December 2023 and February 2024, i.e. two months, was full of events, but the resignation of V. Zaluzhnyi was obviously the most resonant. The results of the survey do not give an opportunity to talk about the specific reasons for the increase or decrease in trust, but we can assume that there is a joint effect of the resignation of V. Zaluzhnyi, which was superimposed on a rather difficult period - a difficult situation at the front, the uncertain position of Ukraine's key allies (especially the USA ), continuation of corruption scandals. At the same time, it should be taken into account that the survey took place in a very "hot" period, so it will be possible to talk about the crystallization of a certain attitude a little later, when the emotions of all participants have cooled down.

So far, against the background of these events, V. Zelenskyi has suffered the biggest losses in trust, but the majority of Ukrainians continue to trust him. It must be understood that one can debate the rightness or wrongness of his decision, but preserving the controllability and legitimacy of state institutions is important for the continuation of the effective fight against the enemy. Some media referred to "internal" surveys, the results of which were used by the President's Office to make difficult decisions. Hopefully, the effects in public sentiment that we are observing have been calculated, and further steps will be less controversial and will lead the country to improve the situation.

In addition, it is fundamentally important that the new Commander-in-Chief enjoys the trust of the population and the history of the resignation of V. Zaluzhnyi did not affect O. Syrskyi's trust indicators. We are all interested in O. Syrskyi succeeding in his position, and therefore we sincerely wish only Victories.

Annex 1. Formulation of questions from the questionnaire

In your opinion, affairs in Ukraine are developing in the wrong or right direction?

To what extent do you trust or not trust the following Ukrainian public figures? If you don't know him or her, say so. RANDOMIZATION OF READING