Zelensky’s Incentive Problem: Unmasking the Media’s Darling

You won’t hear this from the mainstream press, but you’ll hear it here first: Volodymyr Zelensky, the Western media’s darling, is in real political trouble at home. I just commissioned credible polling from inside Ukraine. The war-weary population there wants a new president and a negotiated peace.

This reality makes Zelensky less a heroic statesman and more a vulnerable incumbent with a perverse incentive: to keep slow-walking peace, continue milking Western taxpayers, and delay the elections he’s almost certain to lose.

The Best Data We Have

To learn the truth within Ukraine, we used experienced pollsters who surveyed more than 1,000 citizens. These results represent the clearest and most reliable snapshot of Ukrainian opinion:

• In a hypothetical presidential election against General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Zelensky loses by -13 points.
• Zaluzhnyi, Ukraine’s former armed forces chief, isn’t even in the country. He now serves as ambassador to the United Kingdom—an appointment widely seen as a “consolation prize” from Zelensky meant to marginalize his most popular potential rival. But that move has backfired badly: instead of diminishing Zaluzhnyi, it has only underscored Zelensky’s insecurity and boosted the general’s stature. A man sidelined abroad now leads him by double digits.
• 71% of Ukrainians say corruption is one of the country’s major problems. Just 1% say it isn’t serious.
• A majority, 53%, view Zelensky’s powerful chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, as corrupt. Only 15% disagree.
• By contrast, 64% of Ukrainians do not view Zaluzhnyi as prone to corruption.
• 77% want the war to end through diplomacy alone or through a combination of diplomacy and military action. Only 13% favor a purely military solution—the maximalist line Zelensky and Yermak promote.