By lashing out at Zelensky, Trump is uniting the Ukrainians and their president

Kyiv. 2026 was not an easy year for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the domestic political front. In May, Andriy Yermak, former head of the President’s Office and his closest aide, came under investigation for corruption. In the summer, street protests erupted in Kyiv over the resignation of Defence Minister Mychailo Fedorov, which the President failed to explain to the public. In September, Attorney General Ruslan Kravchenko fled abroad, amidst a climate marked by a sensational corruption scandal involving staff at the Attorney General’s Office.

Internal problems have caused the Ukrainian head of state’s approval ratings to fall: according to a poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), conducted from 21 August to 10 September, confidence in Zelensky stands at 54 per cent, whilst distrust stands at 41 per cent. This remains a high figure, but it is one of the worst for him since the start of the full-scale invasion. “There are many people in Ukraine who are harshly critical of Zelensky,” says political scientist Volodymyr Fesenko.

On 10 October, US President Donald Trump told journalists that the Ukrainians should “change their leader”, because Zelensky “doesn’t strike deals”. But within the country, this statement will have exactly the opposite effect: Fesenko is convinced that the president’s approval ratings will rise again. This had already occurred following the public row between Trump and Zelensky in the Oval Office on 28 February 2025. Prior to that, according to Kiis, confidence in Zelensky stood at 57 per cent.

Following the clash, it jumped to 69 per cent in March 2025 and rose to 74 per cent in May of that year. “The effect of rallying round the Ukrainian flag has worked,” political scientist Igor Reiterovych tells Il Foglio. Ukraine, even at war, remains a democratic country. And democracies do not like pressure, not even when it comes from the United States. “When Trump says the president needs to be changed, he is denying Ukrainians the right to decide for themselves when to do so,” says the expert.

Following the agreements between the US President and Vladimir Putin on Russian diesel supplies to the US market, Zelensky continues to defend Ukraine’s interests, and the public recognises this. Trump is now actively pressing Kyiv to accept Russia’s terms. “When Trump helps Russia, it is viewed very negatively in Ukraine,” says Fesenko. According to the expert, the White House chief’s main mistake is that he still does not understand the reasons behind the war between Russia and Ukraine and sees it as a personal conflict between Putin and Zelensky.

Trump believes that by replacing Zelensky, an agreement could be reached quickly with Putin and the new Ukrainian president. “But the problem isn’t Zelensky; it’s the stance of the Ukrainian people,” observes the political scientist. Polls show that Ukrainians do not want elections during wartime. But even assuming that elections were to be held and that Zelensky were to lose them, and that someone else were to win (for example, the Ukrainian ambassador to London, Valeriy Zaluzhny; the head of the President’s Office, Kyrylo Budanov; the former Defence Minister, Mychailo Fedorov; or someone else), Fesenko believes they would take the same stance that Zelensky holds today, because this is the will of the Ukrainian people. “Trump continues to think that the problem is Zelensky, without realising that Russia still wants to destroy the whole of Ukraine and take control of it,” says the political scientist.

On 11 October, the Ukrainian president told ABC News, during the programme “This Week”, that Kyiv is ready to hold elections if Russia agrees to a full 60-day ceasefire. The following day, Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitri Peskov, rejected the proposal. This merely confirms that Russia does not want peace. Therefore, despite Zelensky’s domestic problems, the slow pace of reforms and corruption scandals, when Kyiv comes under external pressure to accept Russian terms, Ukrainian citizens rally behind their president once again. “This is, in fact, a manifestation of a high level of civic awareness,” concludes Igor Reiterovych with conviction.