{"id":12482,"date":"2026-02-17T13:51:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T13:51:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/?p=12482"},"modified":"2026-02-17T13:51:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T13:51:10","slug":"once-a-popular-wartime-leader-among-ukrainians-zelenskyys-shine-fades-russia-ukraine-war-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/?p=12482","title":{"rendered":"Once a popular wartime leader among Ukrainians, Zelenskyy\u2019s shine fades | Russia-Ukraine war News"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Kyiv, Ukraine<\/strong> \u2013 Volodymyr Zelenskyy\u2019s fortunes have shifted\u00a0since he was elected as an anticorruption outsider in 2019.<\/p>\n

In the first months of Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion, his defiance and everyman image won him global acclaim and overwhelming support at home.<\/p>\n

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Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n

list of 4 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n

But that unity, exhausted by four years of full-scale war, has given way to a more complex mood.<\/p>\n

Now, while many Ukrainians still back him as an international figurehead, concerns about governance and corruption are reshaping his standing domestically.<\/p>\n

\"Ukrainian
Then-Ukrainian presidential candidate Volodymyr Zelenskyy walks out of a voting booth at a polling station during the second round of a presidential election in Kyiv, Ukraine, April 21, 2019 [Valentyn Ogirenko\/Reuters]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

From Messiah to pariah<\/h2>\n

In 2019, when Zelenskyy ran for president, he was a well-known comic actor, best known for playing a schoolteacher who wakes up to find he has been elected head of state after a video of him ranting against corruption, secretly recorded by his pupils, goes viral.<\/p>\n

His campaign used much of the same anticorruption rhetoric as his on-screen character, positioning himself as an outsider to the entrenched oligarchic networks that dominated Ukrainian politics.<\/p>\n

This was something that appealed to voters disillusioned by the status quo, and he stormed to a landslide victory, winning 73 percent of the vote.<\/p>\n

After Zelenskyy came to power, the realities of governing began to erode his everyman image as he first dealt with an energy crisis and then, the impact of the global COVID pandemic.<\/p>\n

In December 2021, two months before the war began, his popularity stood at just 31 percent, according to the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology.<\/p>\n

It is a cycle that Peter Dickinson, the British publisher of Business Ukraine magazine and editor of the Atlantic Council\u2019s UkraineAlert service, sees as common in Ukrainian politics.<\/p>\n

Ukraine\u2019s democracy is \u201cvery vibrant\u201d and \u201cvery dynamic,\u201d but also \u201cvery immature in a lot of ways\u201d, often resembling a \u201chigh school popularity contest\u201d. Politics revolves around individuals rather than institutions, he added.<\/p>\n

Leaders are initially embraced as national saviours, only to be swiftly rejected when expectations of rapid change go unmet, something he called the \u201cMessiah to pariah\u201d effect.<\/p>\n

\"In
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in a series of self-shot videos recorded on his phone and posted to social media in February 2022 [File: Instagram\/@zelenskiy_official via Reuters]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The everyman wartime president<\/h2>\n

On February 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, and overnight, Zelenskyy became a wartime president.<\/p>\n

Donning a casual green military T-shirt, he addressed the nation in a series of self-shot videos published on social media.<\/p>\n

His impassioned speeches urged Ukrainians to take up arms, and his refusal to leave Ukraine, despite warnings from the United States, won him praise at home and abroad.<\/p>\n

His approval rating skyrocketed, hitting 91 percent in the first weeks of the invasion.<\/p>\n

Several people Al Jazeera interviewed in the weeks before the full-scale invasion, who had been critical of the president, changed their minds in the first weeks.<\/p>\n

Mykhail Hontarenko, from Odesa, told Al Jazeera at the time that he had warmed to Zelenskyy, who he saw as a seasoned entertainer suddenly thrust into an experience that made him display genuine emotion. \u201cI don\u2019t think he is acting now; he is scared,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Part of the establishment<\/h2>\n

However, since then, the Ukrainian president has spent less time on the street and more time at the Presidential Palace and on diplomatic trips as he seeks to rally international support.<\/p>\n

In a December survey, the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology found that while 61 percent of Ukrainians trust Zelenskyy, 32 percent do not.<\/p>\n

Some believe he would struggle to be re-elected in a post-war vote.<\/p>\n

Dickinson said this is partly due to corruption scandals involving his associates and the perception that he is concentrating power and using wartime conditions to expand presidential authority.<\/p>\n

\"INTERACTIVE
(Al Jazeera)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Zelenskyy is facing growing pressure from Washington to organise national elections in 2026, but that would require legal and constitutional changes under the country\u2019s wartime martial-law rules.<\/p>\n

In recent days, Zelenskyy has stated that he is \u201cready\u201d to hold an election \u2013 as long as Washington and, perhaps, Brussels could ensure its security.<\/p>\n

In late 2025, Ukraine was shaken by a major corruption scandal, prompting searches and arrests involving senior figures and fuelling scrutiny of Zelenskyy\u2019s inner circle, including longtime chief of staff Andriy Yermak, who resigned.<\/p>\n

\"KHARKIV,
Thousands of residents of Kharkiv are seen on Main Street during a protest against a new bill curtailing anticorruption agencies on July 23, 2025, in Kharkiv, Ukraine [File: Nikoletta Stoyanova\/Getty]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cUkrainians are very, very cynical anyway when it comes to political corruption, so it was a disastrous optic for him to have personal friends of his who he\u2019d appointed to senior roles to be implicated in a scandal,\u201d Dickinson said.<\/p>\n

He added that the latest scandal centred around the energy sector, which is particularly jarring for Ukrainians, considering that Russia\u2019s attacks on infrastructure have left millions without electricity, water or heat in freezing conditions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people [once] felt he was the everyman on the street, but now he\u2019s part of the establishment\u201d, Dickinson said.<\/p>\n

Amina Ismailova, a manager at a textile company in Kharkiv, in Ukraine\u2019s northeast, told Al Jazeera that she believes trust in Zelenskyy is lower than the polls suggest.<\/p>\n

While many soldiers and veterans are not getting paid or receiving adequate healthcare, politicians are profiting from corruption schemes \u2013 something that is hard for people to accept, she said.<\/p>\n

The problem, Ismailova said, echoing many people Al Jazeera spoke to, is the lack of a viable alternative.<\/p>\n

Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Ukraine\u2019s ambassador to the UK, was a name mentioned by a few, although the former head of Ukraine\u2019s military has never announced political ambitions.<\/p>\n

Zaluzhnyi, known as the \u201cIron General\u201d, enjoys the image of a war hero and military mastermind, and Zelesnkyy\u2019s decision in early 2024 to \u201crenew the leadership\u201d and send him to the UK raised suspicions that he saw him as a potential threat to his presidency.<\/p>\n

\"BOVINGTON,
Valerii Zaluzhnyi at The Tank Museum, on April 3, 2025, in Bovington, Dorset, UK [Finnbarr Webster\/Getty]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The rally around the flag effect<\/h2>\n

But despite the current domestic mood, many Ukrainians still support Zelenskyy as a wartime leader.<\/p>\n

Dickinson said Zelenskyy\u2019s response to US President Donald Trump in their fractious Oval Office meeting in February 2025 \u2013 where the Ukrainian president was seen as being pressured or belittled by Trump \u2013 triggered a patriotic surge inside Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Polls at the time showed an immediate rise in his approval ratings.<\/p>\n

Many people felt that when Zelenskyy was attacked, Ukraine itself was being attacked, said Dickinson.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Kyiv, Ukraine \u2013 Volodymyr Zelenskyy\u2019s fortunes have shifted\u00a0since he was elected as an anticorruption outsider in 2019. In the first months of Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion, his defiance and everyman image won him global acclaim and overwhelming support at home. Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list But that unity, exhausted by four years of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12483,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}