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Zelenskyy has 61% trust in Ukraine. Two officials above him in rankings run drone program and city under Russian attack

✇Euromaidan Press
By: Olena Mukhina

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy on 9 June 2026. Source: President's Office

Some 61% of Ukrainian citizens trust President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, according to a new poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) conducted between 7 May and 3 June 2026. Meanwhile, Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov tops the trust-balance ranking among Ukrainian political and public figures at +32%, followed by Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov at +29% and Zelenskyy at +27%.

The trust ranking documents a continuing Ukrainian public pattern that has held across multiple KIIS polls during the war: hands-on wartime managers, particularly mayors and regional administrators in cities under direct Russian attack, outrank national-level political figures in terms of trust, even when national figures retain absolute majority support.

Terekhov leads as Mayor of Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, which has been under sustained Russian missile and drone attack since 2022. Fedorov leads Ukraine's drone-development push and the broader $113 million "Logistics Lockdown" rear-area strike program announced in May. 

Zelenskyy numbers in detail

Among the 61% who trust Zelenskyy, 33% reported "complete" trust and 28% "rather" trust. Among the 34% who do not trust him, 20% reported "complete" distrust and 13% "rather" distrust. The 5% remaining were undecided or refused to answer.

Compared with KIIS's April 2026 reading, trust and distrust shares are within the margin of error, with the trust-distrust balance improving slightly from +22% to +27%.

KIIS noted a methodological nuance specific to this round: questions were asked about 18 different public figures in random order, and a weak correlation emerged: respondents who were asked about Zelenskyy later in the sequence trusted him slightly more than those who were asked earlier.

Full ranking

KIIS's trust-balance ranking among politicians and public-political figures:

  • Ihor Terekhov (Mayor of Kharkiv) — 52% trust, 19% distrust, balance +32%
  • Mykhailo Fedorov (Defense Minister) — 50% trust, 21% distrust, balance +29%
  • Volodymyr Zelenskyy (President) — 61% trust, 34% distrust, balance +27%
  • Vitaliy Kim (head of Mykolaiv Oblast administration) — 47% trust, 27% distrust, balance +20%
  • Oleh Lyashko (former MP, military servicemember) — 47% trust, 43% distrust, balance +5%
  • Serhii Prytula (volunteer) — 46% trust, 44% distrust, balance +2%

What rankings tell us

Zelenskyy's 61% absolute trust is the highest in the ranking. But the trust-balance metric, which weights both trust and distrust, places two other figures above him: Terekhov and Fedorov.

Liashko and Prytula, despite having relatively high absolute trust (47% and 46%), have correspondingly high distrust (43% and 44%). The ranking thus differentiates two distinct kinds of public support: consensus support (Terekhov, Fedorov, Zelenskyy, Kim) versus polarized support (Liashko, Prytula). 

Methodology and coverage

The KIIS poll surveyed 2,007 Ukrainian citizens aged 18 and older via computer-assisted telephone interview (CATI), using random sampling of mobile phone numbers, exclusively in territory under the control of the Ukrainian government. It means that the data does not include displaced Ukrainians abroad or Ukrainians in Russian-occupied territories. 

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