Almost half of Ukrainians would prefer new leaders in post-war politics – survey

Forty-five percent of Ukrainians would not like to see the current president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, or his predecessor, opposition figure Petro Poroshenko, in politics after the war is over.

Source: a survey conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) on 19 September-5 October

Quote: "In total, 45% of respondents do not see either Volodymyr Zelenskyy or Petro Poroshenko in politics after the war.

Another 46% have a 'polarised' approach: they can see one person in politics, but would not like the other to remain in politics. There are more who would like Zelenskyy to remain: 32% believe that Volodymyr Zelenskyy should remain in politics, but not Petro Poroshenko, and 14% would like it to be the other way round.

Only 9% answered that they would like both Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Petro Poroshenko to remain in politics."

Details: The sociologists also added that 32% of all respondents would like to see the criminal prosecution of either Zelenskyy, Poroshenko, or both.

Of that 32%, 5% supported the prosecution of both politicians, while the remaining 27% favoured action against one of them.

KIIS noted that although 32% is a relatively high figure, it also means that 68% of respondents would not want criminal proceedings against either Zelenskyy or Poroshenko.

Commenting on the survey results, KIIS Executive Director Anton Hrushetskyi said Ukrainians expect to see a new face in the post of president after the war.

However, Hrushetskyi believes the desire to have a new president (or new people in other senior state positions) does not necessarily imply a wish for the current parliamentary opposition to come to power.

Many Ukrainians would like Zelenskyy (representing the current government) and Poroshenko (representing the opposition) to make way for new leaders.

Quote from Hryshetskyi: "Another important point that we would like to draw attention to is that Ukrainians have quite a mild view of prominent figures leaving politics.

For the most part, it is about giving them the opportunity to simply leave politics and focus on charitable, international or family activities. Relatively few Ukrainians demand 'blood,' that is, harsh public punishment.

This approach (simply leaving politics without the threat of prosecution) is a very civilised one and should actually be encouraged if we are striving to build a democratic European Ukraine."

For reference: The survey was conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology between 19 September and 5 October 2025.

KIIS added some questions of its own about trust in President Zelenskyy and how Ukrainians envision Zelenskyy and Poroshenko's future political activity after the end of the war.

Using telephone interviews based on a random sample of mobile numbers across all government-controlled regions of Ukraine, 1,008 respondents aged 18 and over were surveyed.

Under normal circumstances, the statistical margin of error for this sample (with a 0.95 confidence level and accounting for a design effect of 1.3) did not exceed: 4.1% for indicators close to 50%, 3.5% for indicators near 25%, 2.5% for indicators around 10%, and 1.8% for indicators near 5%.

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