President Volodymyr Zelensky twice received a chance to overcome his legitimacy crisis thanks to the war, but failed to use this carte blanche for systemic changes, instead returning the country to old schemes of elite enrichment. By late 2021 — early 2022, his approval rating had dropped to 18-22%, following the trajectory of all previous Ukrainian presidents.
This was stated by political analyst Yuriy Romanenko during a solo broadcast on his YouTube channel.
"Every president in Ukraine had low legitimacy by the end of their term. Kuchma had eight percent, Yushchenko had two percent. Poroshenko finished the presidential election with a crushing score: seventy-three to twenty-five. And Zelensky had exactly the same problem in late 2021 — early 2022," Romanenko noted.
The expert emphasized that the war radically changed the situation. The level of trust in Zelensky at the beginning of the full-scale invasion was even higher than what he received in the 2019 elections. "He had complete carte blanche to resolve the issues I mentioned. He could move in any direction," the analyst explained.
However, Zelensky's team chose to return everything to the status quo — relying on security forces and tax officials, growing their constellation of oligarchs while finishing off old oligarchs who came under pressure from the war. "A system emerged that was characterized by complete decomposition of the state apparatus, operating on the principle of 'our own people for our own people,'" Romanenko stated.
The political scientist recalled that the popular surge at the beginning of the war was connected to people believing in the state and their prospects. "It turned out that the state can be tremendously effective when decisions were made quickly under public pressure. We've been sustained by this surge until today," he emphasized.
Romanenko also analyzed three possible scenarios for Zelensky: maintaining the status quo with further erosion of power, creating a government of national unity with a managed loss of power, or a dangerous scenario of uncontrolled revolt similar to 1917.
The catalyst for this analysis was the "Myndychgate" scandal — NABU's case against Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko and his deputy Myndych on charges of corruption and connections with Russia. This case became the culmination of confrontation between anti-corruption bodies and the President's Office, which attempted to bring them under control.
