Data shows Trump's criticisms are increasing trust in Zelenskyy.

Extract from ABC News

By Riley Stuart in London

• Topic:World Politics

49 minutes ago

Donald Trump has described Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a "dictator". (Reuters: Evelyn Hockstein, Gleb Garanich)

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The talks were billed as secret. In reality, they were anything but.

This week, reports surfaced that senior members of US President Donald Trump's team had been speaking to opposition politicians in Ukraine about the possibility of a wartime election.

They did not get far.

Yuliia Tymoshenko and Petro Poroshenko — both political rivals of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — confirmed they had had discussions, but ruled out a snap poll.

Notwithstanding the fact such a move would be unconstitutional, there is a bigger issue facing those agitating for a change of government in Kyiv.

New data appears to show increasing trust among Ukrainians in their president as Mr Trump and his administration have stepped up criticisms over the past three weeks.

The Oval Office showdown that could cost Ukraine the war

Photo shows Zelenskyy and Trump shouting at each other

It was supposed to be a major step towards peace. Instead, the world watched on as relations disintegrated in less than an hour, leaving Ukraine's future hanging in the balance.

Before breaking that down, it's helpful to remember what the US commander-in-chief has said and done.

On February 12, Mr Trump announced he and Russian President Vladimir Putin had held a phone call that lasted about 90 minutes — the first formal contact between Washington and Moscow since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Then on February 19, while signing executive orders at his Mar-a-Lago mansion, the US president claimed, incorrectly, that Mr Zelenskyy had an approval rating of 4 per cent.

Two days later, Mr Trump said he was "sick" of watching the Ukrainian president try to "negotiate with no cards" an end to the war.

In a social media post, he also accused Mr Zelenskyy of being a "dictator without elections", which prompted the Ukrainian president to say Mr Trump was living in a Russian "disinformation space".

All that happened before the pair's explosive Oval Office meeting last week, and Mr Trump's subsequent decision to pause all aid to Ukraine.

If the US leader was trying to turn people against Mr Zelenskyy, experts, and new data, suggest he has failed.

The Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) regularly publishes data on attitudes towards the country's leader.

Its most recent survey, released on Friday, shows that as Mr Trump has stepped up his criticisms, Ukrainians' trust in their president appears to have increased.

The poll included results from 1,029 people from February 14 to March 4, a period that has coincided with many of Mr Trump's attacks on Mr Zelenskyy.

The pair's Oval Office meeting took place on February 28, which was midway through the most recent survey period.

Breaking down the data from before and after the fiery encounter shows that while it may have made global headlines, Ukrainians' trust in their president had already been increasing in the days leading up to it.

KIIS executive director Anton Hrushetskyi said the growth in public trust Mr Zelenskyy was experiencing was not about the "attacks on him personally."

"Ukrainians perceive the rhetoric of the new US government as an attack on all of Ukraine and all Ukrainians," he said.

Mr Trump has, on several occasions, repeated the Kremlin lie that Ukraine was responsible for starting the war, and last week, the US voted against two UN resolutions designed to support Kyiv and mark the third anniversary of Russia's invasion.

Mr Hrushetskyi said moves like this were "completely at odds with Ukrainian public opinion".

According to KIIS data, trust in Mr Zelenskyy had been decreasing from a high of 90 per cent in May 2022, three months after the war began.

The most recent results, showing 67 per cent of Ukrainians trust him, represent the highest levels in more than 12 months.

'He is definitely a wartime leader'

Marnie Howlett, a lecturer in Russian and Eastern European politics at Oxford University, has researched attitudes towards Mr Zelenskyy and the war among Ukrainians extensively.

"Within the last few days, everything I've seen coming out of Ukraine is extreme support for their president," she said.

"People in Ukraine are really full of admiration for how Zelenskyy handled the Oval Office meeting and also feel very strongly he was bullied and ambushed in that situation."

Dr Howlett was in Ukraine when Mr Zelenskyy was elected president in 2019.

"I really didn't think that he would be as effective as a leader as he has proven to be," she said.

"Despite all the claims he's a dictator, he continues to hold very high support in Ukraine.

"I think many Ukrainians recognise he is the leader that they need in this time. He perhaps won't be a post-war leader, but he is definitely a wartime leader and no other individual in Ukraine right now would be able to play that role."

Volodymyr Zelenskyy clashes with Donald Trump and JD Vance during Oval Office talks.

Mr Trump may be getting "sick" of Mr Zelenskyy, but Ukrainians do not seem to be.

While we wait for more data to see how support for the Ukrainian president may have changed since the fiery Oval Office meeting, a poll by London-based firm Survation published on February 28 — before Mr Zelenskyy arrived in Washington — showed him on track to win an election comfortably, if one was held.

The survey included popular former four-star general Valerii Zaluzhnyi, a former commander-in-chief of Ukraine's military, who is currently the country's ambassador to the United Kingdom.

Mariia Zolkina is the head of regional security and conflict studies at the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation, an independent Kyiv-based think tank.

"There's a paradox to the pressure that Trump is putting on Zelenskyy, and that's the more he follows Russian propaganda that Ukraine's president is illegitimate, the reaction domestically is completely the opposite," she said.

"On the ground, Zelenskyy has been gaining more trust and getting more popular.

"Whenever Ukrainians consider something unfair, or that they're feeling pressured to do something, the reaction throughout history has been to resist, and you're seeing that now."

Mr Trump and some others inside his administration have questioned whether Mr Zelenskyy should hold elections, but that would be at odds with the country's constitution.

Martial law has been in place in the country since February 24, 2022 — the day Russia launched its full-scale invasion — and during that period elections are banned.

Aside from that, there are logistical challenges many argue are insurmountable. Large parts of the country are being occupied by Moscow's forces, and the constant attacks make it dangerous for people to congregate in large numbers — something that would be inevitable if they needed to vote.

Ms Tymoshenko and Mr Poroshenko both held talks with the US. And while they have defended that decision, they have both consistently ruled out the possibility of holding elections while the war rages on.

Last month, Ukraine's parliament also voted unanimously in support of the country's president.

Protesters make their voices heard outside the US embassy in Kyiv on Thursday. (Reuters: Valentyn Ogirenko)

It is not just in Ukraine that Mr Zelenskyy's stocks appear to be rising. A YouGov poll published this week showed the president's "favourability rating" increased 64 points to 71 among people in the United Kingdom in the period from February 17 to March 5.

Kristin Bakke, a professor in political science and international relations at University College London, said actions such as the US pausing its aid to Kyiv had a significant impact on the way people thought, not just in Ukraine, but elsewhere too.

"That galvanising support for Zelenskyy in Ukraine seems to be reflected in most other societies and countries as well, certainly in many European states," she said.

"People are just outraged about that behaviour and sheer rudeness of what happened in the Oval Office.

"But it's not necessarily the rhetoric that's going to make Ukrainians more or less committed, it's the actions, for example what actually happens with external support."