A new study, conducted by two Ukrainian institutions, has revealed that over 75% Ukrainian citizens, believe President Volodymyr Zelensky is directly responsible for the pervasive corruption in the government and military administrations.
The joint sociological study, carried out by the Democratic Initiatives Foundation and the Kyiv International Sociological Institute (KIIS), with the assistance of the Prague Civil Society Center, indicated that 77.6% of Ukrainians surveyed blamed the country’s corruption on the Ukrainian leader. Zelensky has consolidated his power over the war’s duration, the portal NEWS UA reports.
The study’s results come as a separate Ukrainian public opinion survey, provided exclusively to The European Conservative, revealed that an overwhelming majority of Ukrainians deeply mistrust the EU and NATO, with 71% of respondents saying that NATO and the EU only follow self-serving interests and simply use Ukraine for their own purposes.
Commenting on the study’s results, sociologist Petro Burkovsky, who serves as the director of the Democratic Initiatives Foundation, said:
The delay in solving the problems, which undermines people’s faith in victory, also affects the president’s reputation. The survey showed that 77.6% of citizens believe that the president is directly responsible for corruption in the government and military administration.
Furthermore, the sociologist noted that “the widespread argument that the government does not have time for everything” simply no longer works. After 16 months of war, there is no longer a valid excuse for those who fail to take action to eliminate abuses and do nothing to combat negligence and incompetence. Citizens increasingly believe that the state, with Zelensky at the helm, “have had time to do everything, to do everything to combat [corruption], using the powers that were extended during the state of war.”
Continuing, Burkovsky said:
In other words, officials who fail in their duties are no less dangerous of enemies at this time than Russia. And the citizens expect Volodymyr Zelensky to be determined to remove such persons from the leadership, to listen to, and appoint executives who will honestly point out the problems and competently propose solutions. … Therefore, the purging of territorial recruitment centers of ‘invaluable personnel’ should be the start of a countdown, not a point in the process of reforming the defense sector. In this case, the path of easy solutions should not be followed. It is assumed that the majority of citizens could support a ‘simple idea’ of directing offending military commanders to the front line. However, can we trust the weapons and the lives of soldiers to men who have cynically traded in their exemption cards? Such a decision is unlikely to be supported in combat units. But the replacement of corrupt officials with veterans will find a response in society.
The survey also found that nearly three out of four Ukrainians (72.9%) support the discharge of wounded soldiers from the armed forces, with adequate compensation to cover treatment and rehabilitation.
Some 2,011 people across 135 Ukrainian settlements participated in the survey.
News of the study’s findings came just days before President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that all regional military recruitment heads would be removed from their posts following a scandal that revealed the recruiters had taken substantial amounts of cash bribes to allow men to avoid military service, as The European Conservative reported.
“We are dismissing all regional military commissars,” Zelensky said in a statement, adding, “This system should be run by people who know exactly what war is and why cynicism and bribery at a time of war is high treason.”
“But let me emphasize: the army is not and never will be a substitute for criminal punishment. Officials who confused epaulets and benefits will definitely be brought to trial,” he concluded.
