By KYIV. Dec 20 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The overwhelming majority of Ukrainians – 72% – would react negatively to the resignation of commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valeriy Zaluzhny, according to a survey conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) on December 4-10, 2023.
Only 2% of respondents reacted positively to this, and another 21% were neutral. In all regions, the majority of the population is critical of Zaluzhny’s resignation.
Some 43% of Ukrainians believe that there may be certain disagreements or tensions between Zaluzhny and President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy. However, only 8% of them believe that the situation is very serious, and the remaining 35% consider these misunderstandings not very serious. In general, 39% of respondents do not believe that there is a certain conflict.
Both Zaluzhny and head of the Main Intelligence Agency of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, Kyrylo Budanov, and commander of the Ground Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Oleksandr Syrsky, enjoy high public confidence, and the difference in trust shares is largely a consequence of different levels of awareness about them.
Thus, among all respondents, 92% trust Zaluzhny, 60% – Budanov (but 18% do not know him), 33% – Syrsky (but 48% do not know him). In terms of those who know these commanders, 94% trust Zaluzhny, 73% – Budanov and 63% – Syrsky. At the same time, the level of distrust among those who know them is 5% for Zaluzhny, 24% for Budanov, and 29% for Syrsky.
The survey was conducted by computer-assisted telephone interviews (CATI) among 1,200 adult respondents from all the regions under Ukraine’s control. Formally, under normal circumstances, the statistical error of such a sample (with a probability of 0.95 and taking into account the design effect of 1.1) did not exceed 3.2% for indicators close to 50% and 1.4% for indicators close to 5%. In war conditions, in addition to the specified formal error, a certain systematic deviation is added.
