The numbers deliver a verdict Ukrainians send Zelenskyy the bill

To say that the results of a poll conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) came as a “cold shower” for Ukraine’s president and his entire team would be an understatement, as seven in ten Ukrainians believe that the head of state bears responsibility for corrupt actions by members of his inner circle.

In the survey, respondents were asked a specific question: “How has the level of corruption changed during the war?” As many as 72% said they believed corruption had increased since the start of the full-scale war and that Zelenskyy himself bears responsibility for corrupt actions by members of his inner circle. Twenty-five per cent disagreed, while 3% were undecided.

Meanwhile, according to another poll conducted by the Sociopolis research company from September 16 to 21, 75.2% of Ukrainians said they believed the level of corruption in the country had increased during the war, while 59% said they directly associated this rise with the president and his Office.

As we can see, this is one of those rare cases in which two different opinion polls point to a clear political verdict from Ukrainian citizens on the country’s current president and his entire team. Zelenskyy has effectively become a “classic lame duck”, as many Ukrainian politicians, political analysts and journalists have pointed out.

Former Verkhovna Rada MP and now popular blogger Boryslav Bereza commented on the KIIS poll results on his Facebook page as follows: “For an overwhelming majority of Ukrainians, corruption in government is now a greater concern than shelling, because Ukrainians understand that it is precisely because of corruption that there are no ballistic missiles or means to counter attack drones, while billions from the state budget end up with companies owned by the president’s friends, and there are houses in ‘Dynastia’ and diamonds belonging to various Musas. Ukrainians have already realised that corruption physically kills. All of this is reflected in the KIIS poll results. And this is already a verdict on Zelenskyy. He will go down in Ukrainian history as Vova with a house in ‘Dynastia’, built with corrupt money at a time when Ukraine’s finest sons and daughters were giving their lives for the country’s independence. And Volodymyr Zelenskyy can forget about a second term.”

For greater clarity, let us look at the specific figures. According to the KIIS poll, 50% of Ukrainians are concerned about corruption in government, while 40% are concerned about large-scale missile and drone strikes. Other concerns include the government’s lack of professionalism and competence, cited by 30% of respondents, as well as low salaries and pensions.

Thus, according to these findings, Ukrainians clearly understand that a corruption apparatus of enormous proportions has brought the country to a critical state and that, had this pernicious phenomenon not existed, the country would have had sufficient resources for everything, including countering Russian unmanned aerial vehicles.

At the same time, Ukrainians are being “fed” promises, including on the issue of counter-drone defence. This time, Head of the Presidential Office Kyrylo Budanov assured them that Ukraine’s ability to counter Russian jet-powered UAVs would reach an adequate level within several months. He also said that Ukrainian prototypes were already being tested directly in combat conditions, successfully shooting down Russian drones, and that efforts were now under way to scale up production.

Yet Budanov’s promises and forecasts have one remarkable feature: they tend not to come true. For example, in 2022, he repeatedly said that Ukrainian forces would enter Crimea by the end of spring 2023, which did not happen. In January 2023, he expected the most intense fighting to take place in March and spoke of a major counteroffensive stretching from Crimea to Donbas, to restore Ukraine’s 1991 borders.

In February 2025, Budanov suggested that active hostilities could end within a year, but that forecast also failed to materialise. Now he is asking Ukrainians to wait several more months before means of countering Russian jet-powered drones finally become available. At the same time, Budanov apparently gives little thought to how shocking his words sound against the backdrop of the enormous daily destruction caused by Russia’s missile and drone attacks.

But what understanding can one expect, in principle, from a person whose name has surfaced in the high-profile “Forrest Gump” corruption scandal, where it repeatedly appears in episodes involving former Deputy Head of the Presidential Office Iryna Mudra? In a transcript of a conversation dated May 22, she told businessman Maksym Mykytas that, after meeting with “Kyryll Oleksiyovych”, she received a package containing $50,000, of which $20,000 was handed over as “gratitude for assignments”.

According to the investigation materials, the person she refers to as “Kyryll Oleksiyovych” is identified in a number of episodes as Kyrylo Budanov, while some transcripts explicitly state that he participated in the relevant conversations.

Thus, the latest promise from the head of the Presidential Office holds nothing new in store for Ukrainians, especially since he is acting in much the same way as Zelenskyy. It is enough to recall how, on February 11, 2025, the president told The Guardian that Ukraine was ready to offer Russia an exchange of the territory of Kursk Region it controlled at the time for Ukrainian lands under Russian control, even though in September 2024 he had stated the exact opposite, namely that Ukraine would not “trade one territory for another”. In the end, Russia regained control of Kursk Region, and the president’s words became little more than empty rhetoric in the daily record of life on Bankova Street — something we have witnessed more than once.

It seems that Zelenskyy’s opponents will inevitably remind him of all this, and in no uncertain terms, after the war, when the time comes for new presidential and parliamentary elections. And it will not be only Zelenskyy himself, but also everyone he brought with him into government who will face the consequences. The verdict of Ukrainian society, as reflected in the results of opinion polls, points in that direction, and no amount of support from loyal media outlets and bloggers will help him prolong his political life.