One in four Ukrainians would vote for Zelenskyy if elections were held in near future – survey
About a quarter of Ukrainians surveyed (24.5%) would vote for Volodymyr Zelensky if the elections were held next Sunday, according to the results of a survey conducted by the Institute of Social and Political Psychology of the National Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of Ukraine together with the Association of Political Psychologists of Ukraine.
Some 18% would vote for former Commander-in-Chief of Ukraine’s Armed Forces Valeriy Zaluzhny, 8.4% for Petro Poroshenko, 11.5% for other candidates, and 28.6% are undecided, the organizers of the survey reported at a press conference at the Interfax-Ukraine agency on Wednesday.
In general, if, due to the end of the term of the current president, it was decided to hold presidential elections and they were held next Sunday, 71.4% of respondents would definitely or rather take part in the voting.
The statement "Our government is profiting from the war and sinking deeper into corruption" is supported by about 46% of potential voters of Zelenskyy, while among the supporters of Zaluzhny and Poroshenko there are one and a half times more of them - about 75%.
About 47% of the current president's supporters agree that the current Ukrainian government is decisively cleansing itself of those who profit from the war, tainted themselves with corruption and other abuses. Among potential voters of Zaluzhny, less than a quarter of respondents (22.1%) think so, among supporters of Poroshenko - only 15.7%.
More than 60% of potential voters for Zelenskyy, half of Zaluzhny's voters and only 37.5% of Poroshenko's voters believe that events in Ukraine are generally developing in the right direction. Two thirds (66%) of the current president's supporters agree that today it is necessary to refrain from any actions against the government, because they weaken Ukraine in the face of the Russian aggressor, while among Zaluzhny's supporters, 45% think so, and former President Petro Poroshenko's - 28.4%.
Differences in assessments of Ukrainian-American relations and their potential impact on the course of the war are also recorded. Among Zelenskyy's voters, the share of those who consider the United States to be a stronghold of world democracy and our strategic partner, despite Donald Trump's unfriendly statements, significantly predominates (60.3%), while among Poroshenko's supporters, only 42.2% agree with this. Those who support the current president of Ukraine are more likely to disagree that with the advent of the Trump administration, hopes for victory and a just peace have become absolutely unrealistic (56.8%), while among the supporters of Zaluzhny and Poroshenko, less than half of the respondents share this disagreement (42.2% and 44.6%, respectively).
Among the supporters of Zaluzhny, the share of those who do not believe in Ukraine's ability to resist the Russian aggressor without American help was one and a half times higher than among Zelensky's voters (40.8% versus 27%, respectively).
Zelenskyy's supporters are noticeably less supportive of the agreement on rare earth metals as payment for US military aid - more than half (51.4%) disagree that providing the US with access to Ukrainian rare earth metals as payment for military aid is fair. Among Zaluzhny's voters, 41.7% have this position, among Poroshenko's voters - 38.2%. At the same time, as noted, supporters of the current president of Ukraine have a certain contradictory position.
On the one hand, three quarters of them (74.8%) consider Ukraine to be a single whole, which is significantly more than among supporters of Zaluzhny (50.9%) and P. Poroshenko (46.1%). On the other hand, voters of Zelenskyy are more irreconcilable towards Ukrainian refugees abroad: 38% of them believe that those who fled abroad are not worthy of living in Ukraine (28.9% of Zaluzhny's supporters and 29.4% of Poroshenko's supporters believe this). On the one hand, potential voters of the current President of Ukraine have more radical views on the restoration of Ukraine's nuclear status - 68.2% of them support such restoration (among the supporters of Zaluzhny - 52.8%, Poroshenko - 49.5%). On the other hand, those who support Zelenskyy are more tolerant of draft dodgers (58.8% compared to 52.3% among the supporters of Zaluzhny and 47.5% among Poroshenko).
Some 38.5% of potential voters of Zelenskyy agree with the statement "A small disgrace is better than a big war," while among the supporters of Zaluzhny, 26.6% think so.
The survey was conducted by the Institute of Social and Political Psychology of the National Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of Ukraine together with the Association of Political Psychologists of Ukraine using face-to-face interviews on March 15-25, 2025. A total of 1,213 respondents aged 18 and over were interviewed in the territory controlled by the Ukrainian government. The sample is representative of the adult population of Ukraine. The margin of error is 3.2%.
