By HUGO DIONÍSIO*

Excusing Zelensky for the degrading functioning of the Ukrainian state, more than disregarding his guilt and democracy itself, consists in obscuring the suffering of those he condemns to war every day.

The recently released data The Razumkov Polling Center’s surveys for the period February-March 2025 reveal an intriguing political phenomenon: Ukrainians, apparently and tendentially, continue to trust President Volodymyr Zelensky, but they tend to deeply distrust the government, parliament, police and even the state itself – in most cases massively. This dichotomy suggests an effective strategy of “selective victimization” – in which the president is portrayed (and characterized) as a leader fighting against a dysfunctional, intrinsically corrupt system, thus escaping the scrutiny that falls on other institutions.

There are several methods used to achieve this, but none of them are hidden or imperceptible. Everything is done in the open, both within Ukraine itself and through communications from the presidency itself and the media. mainstream, Many funded by USAID and other Western organizations, but also through communication that enters the country through Western media outlets, reporting information pieces and communications from government institutions that sponsor the Kiev regime. This is an interdependent communication strategy, which aims to legitimize the Kiev regime in the eyes of Ukrainians and European peoples, enclosing both in a closed narrative bubble without relevant external criticism or contradiction.

The fact is that this strategy is tremendously effective and aims to provoke a dissociation between the “leader” and the remaining institutions, with the data from the aforementioned poll showing that Volodymyr Zelensky maintains a high approval rating, around 57,5% (among those who fully trust (17,3%) and those who tend to trust (40,2%)), while the Parliament (with a total of 17,8%) and the government (with a total of 22,5%) rarely exceed 20 to 30% trust, taking into account polls from previous periods.

As if to give a glimpse of the kind of regime that has been established in Ukraine today, those who are also spared from the disaster, revealing the effectiveness of war propaganda and the need to maintain a warmongering economy, are the Armed Forces and volunteers (read “foreign or national mercenaries”), who enjoy a level of trust above 80%, in direct contrast to the civilian and supposedly “democratic” institutions. For a State that claims to be the last barrier of democracy in the face of autocracy, the overwhelming distrust towards democratic institutions is not a great calling card.

Furthermore, when the president's term expires and when respondents are asked about the need for elections, only 22% tend to say that they are necessary. In other words, a “democratic” system whose “people” value a president whose term has expired does not want elections and devalues ​​the country's civil institutions.

Even local government institutions, the courts, the police and the public prosecutor's office, do not pass the test of trust. With the exception of the president, military or militarised institutions (formerly Nazi groups such as Azov and others), the Church and the security services (SBU), all the others rarely escape a tremendously negative image and none of them achieves high levels of trust, much higher than a mere 50%.

Herself - Host mass media The Ukrainian government does not escape negative evaluation, with 41,2% of respondents saying they tend to believe or completely believe in this service. It is as if the Ukrainian people were led to blame themselves (teachers, politicians, police officers, civil servants, journalists, etc.) as a way of highlighting the sanctity of those who, in fact, govern them. The entire base and intermediate layers of the population are led to self-sacrifice as a way of preserving the life of the top.

This XNUMXth-century trade-offs, under which the Ukrainian people take responsibility for everything that fails, excusing the leadership for the misfortune in which they live, even rewarding actions that condemn them to death, leaves us disconcerted by the explanations it can give: either the Ukrainian state is not a democracy, insofar as it maintains an irresponsible leadership, incapable of responding to the people's needs, making them believe that, on top of that, it is their fault; or the Razumkov Center's survey is not to be taken seriously, insofar as, in a truly democratic society, the people would never blame themselves, especially for the incapacities and shortcomings of the representative power that they elect, precisely to overcome them. To that extent, in either case, we will have to question the true role played by the Razumkov Center.

Regardless of the answer, we are therefore faced with a clear case of militarism, authoritarianism and plutocracy, resulting from an alliance between the various factions that make up the power structure, composed of the presidency, which protects the oligarchy and its national and foreign sponsors, adding to it the Church, used to indoctrinate, and the “security” services to spy on, persecute and harass the population.

In fact, I was not surprised that the respondents were afraid to answer certain questions, for fear of reprisals, given that the country is in a climate of intimidation, terror, threats and mass surveillance. Simply speaking Russian could result in criminal proceedings, questioning the continuation of the war or criticizing the army and security services, immediate arrest.

The instruments used to create a condescending narrative towards the person who, after all, claims to be responsible for the country are well-known. The war narrative in which Volodymyr Zelensky positions himself as the “commander-in-chief” of the resistance, wearing attire reminiscent of a 20th-century revolutionary guerrilla (which is a profound philosophical contradiction when adopted by a Zionist, neoliberal, Nazi-Banderaite), while the government and parliament are associated with pre-war bureaucracy and corruption, is one of the most common communication strategies. The president who defends the country, undermined by the corrupt powers of a Ukraine that persists in not changing, despite the will of its President. How many times have we heard Ursula von der Leyen say that “Ukraine must change”?

Such victimization is only possible because we are witnessing a centralization of political power without parallel in Ukraine's short history, to the point where Volodymyr Zelensky has produced a law who prevented anyone responsible from starting negotiations with the Russian side, convincing everyone and everything, including resorting to Think thanks Europeans and North Americans (such as the CIDOB in Barcelona/Spain), to pursue the strategy of “making peace through war”.

This centralization was achieved through the imposition of martial law and the suspension of elections, thus creating an emergency shield, or a “war shield”, in which any failure in public policy was attributed to the limitations of war or the inefficiency of third parties. A bit like what happened in the countries of the European Union during the lockdown of Covid-19, excusing governments for their incompetence and the damage caused by their policies.

In general, the victimization strategy that ensures Volodymyr Zelensky's political survival is based on three rhetorical pillars: (i) “I am fighting against a rotten system”, in which even though he is the head of state, he distances himself from the institutions, blaming them for problems such as corruption, slowness or defeat, as so often happens when he holds someone responsible for Russian advances or by the collapse of military forces; (ii) “War justifies everything”, allowing for the constant opening of exceptions and changes of narrative, postponing reforms or elections and transferring frustrations to “internal enemies”, as in the case of Poroshenko; (iii) “The West is slow, but I am the face of the resistance”, the “ambassador of freedom”, in which Volodymyr Zelensky capitalizes on international sympathy, while the failure to deliver weapons or aid is blamed on others (USA, European Union).

The data allow us to conclude that there is indeed a shifting of blame. We have the case of selective distrust, reflected in the fact that 75% of Ukrainians (data from 2023-24) approve of the presidential leadership in the war and only 23% trust the Parliament (Razumkov Centre). Even after the current erosion, the most recent data demonstrate the same type of attitude among the public. There is a crisis of representation, but it mainly affects political parties, rather than the president, not even sparing the “servant of the people” party that brought him to power. Finally, we have the crisis of trust in order and justice, with the police, the courts, the prosecutor's office and the anti-corruption units left in the lurch, while the all-powerful Volodymyr Zelensky is spared from negative evaluation.

This paradox, of an all-powerful president who fights against evil forces within and without, against everything and everyone, so great that he gets nowhere and so powerful that he achieves nothing, is typical of regimes, as reported in the book The politics of dictatorship. Removing from it the categories that constitute the concept in question (cult of personality, historical justifications allied to victimization, religious alignment, selective responsibility, manipulation of legal frameworks (states of exception), public relations campaigns, militarism, surveillance and intelligence, etc.) we quickly realize that they are also present in the Kiev regime, one in which the problems are eternalized, but rivers of money are spent on propaganda around the sanctification of the regime's figures: the President; the Ukrainian Church; the “security” services.

A kind of what Salazar did in Portugal with the trilogy Pide, Church and Empire. We cannot talk about a “God, Country, Family”, because it would be ridiculous that a figure who sells the country to Blackrock, succumbs to the neocolonialism of Joe Biden and Donald Trump and bets on wokism as a propaganda strategy for European urban youth, using patriotism and family as symbols of their propaganda. Volodymyr Zelensky is more of a farce than a tragedy, recalling the maxim attributed to Engels.

But one should not think that Volodymyr Zelensky’s power and image are legitimized only from within. The European Union, NATO and the United States are perhaps the most responsible for building the cult of Zelensky’s personality and promoting, from outside, a sanctified image of the leader of the Kiev regime.

Not only do they present him as a symbolic leader of the European resistance, they also give him constant visibility in Western institutions (presented as “international”), consolidating his position as “the voice of Ukraine”, not only abroad, but also for the Ukrainian public, trying to establish a very strong relationship between a recovered national pride and the figure of its president, who restores it abroad, in the civilized West of illusions, which values ​​him so much and welcomes him so well. This welcome is constantly accompanied by emotional language, through which “leaders” such as Ursula von der Leyen or Charles Michel frequently reward him with terms such as “courage”, “sacrifice” and “fight for Europe”, associating Zelensky with transcendental values, above traditional politics, the so-called “European values”.

At the same time, they do so by exhaustively portraying Ukraine as a victim and its president as a martyred but fierce fighter. The symbolic image of “David versus Goliath” constantly comes to mind, aggressively minimizing or omitting any reports of corruption or government dysfunction in Ukraine.

Instead, they constantly choose to emphasize the supposed “suffering”, favoring images of Volodymyr Zelensky in war scenarios (battle fronts, funerals), reinforcing the idea that he “shares the people’s sacrifices”, unlike traditional politicians. As we have heard countless times from Western politicians, they say they admire Volodymyr Zelensky for not having fled Kiev, for having stayed in the country and for never going into hiding. However, they do so without any proof that he actually did so. The objective is clear: to build an infallible, heroic and superhuman image of a leader who, after all, is full of flaws, starting with his presence in the Pandora Papers.

The European Union also opts for selective oblivion when it very blatantly hides the profoundly negative actions of Kiev, whether with direct consequences for the member states of the European Union or for their peoples, as in the cases in which Volodymyr Zelensky sabotaged gas supplies to Europe via the Druzhba pipeline, or, more recently, when he ordered the explosion of the Sudzha pumping station, ensuring that the European Union will not be able to receive gas via this route, at least for the next two and a half years.

Who should make this choice? Volodymyr Zelensky? The security agencies that obscurely intervene with Kiev, or the European people? The same is done by European “leaders” when the Kiev regime attacks nuclear power plants like the one in Zaporizhzhya or carries out terrorist attacks. in Russia or Africa. In these cases, the European Union remains silent, even when it is deeply discredited before its own people and those of the global south.

In the very specific cases where Western powers make tenuous criticisms about corruption or the need for greater budgetary scrutiny, such criticisms are usually directed at the government, parliament or oligarchs and not at the lapsed Ukrainian president. This privilege that Volodymyr Zelensky enjoys, of remaining in the shadows, when disaster strikes – even in military terms, NATO/EU tends to blame itself herself and her – and to come into the limelight when the strategy achieves some success, extends only to him and, through him, to the military forces. All other Ukrainian institutions tend to receive the opposite treatment, being given the limelight for failures and obscurity for successes.

This communication strategy is then replicated by internal media outlets, which are highly dependent on external funding, including the European Union, acting in such a way that when the European Union praises Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian press (such as ukrainska pravda, Kyiv Independent or state channels) uses these speeches as proof that his leadership is internationally recognized, discouraging domestic criticism.

Another way to immunize or sanctify Volodymyr Zelensky’s image is when European media frequently contrasts “heroic Ukraine” with “aggressor Russia”, but also subliminally contrasts Volodymyr Zelensky (the democratic leader) with the Ukrainian political elites (the “old structures”). All this pre-reflective, emotional communication resonates with the population, justifying distrust in the government and parliament, but paradoxically, to a lesser extent, in the top leader. It is as if Zelensky were the most beloved of leaders, as the West so often likes to ridicule in relation to others, who are much more defenseless, unsupported or victims.

This attitude leads the Ukrainian people into a trap of consciousness, a psychological prison, which functions as blackmail. If the European Union treats Volodymyr Zelensky as the only valid interlocutor, Ukrainian citizens internalize the idea that questioning him could mean weakening the country in the eyes of its allies—a useful narrative in times of war—and strengthening its enemies.

This strategy, as we can see, will not last forever. The truth is that even Volodymyr Zelensky no longer enjoys the same approval ratings he once did. If until a year ago, the outgoing Ukrainian president still had approval ratings of around 70% (having reached 91%), today Zelensky only has 57,5%, although 40,2% of respondents answered “I tend to believe”.

And we cannot fail to add here, in these days of bitterness for polling centers, that Razumkov Center is financed by the European Union, through the program Horizon, which will not be without its importance. We all know how and where to conduct polls that yield one result or another. This technique was not invented and will not end in Ukraine.

War fatigue, caused by the deterioration of the military situation, compulsory conscription and the despair of mothers and wives over the loss of their loved ones; the lack of alternatives, linked to the absence of elections, prevents political renewal, but also crystallizes discontent – ​​which could explode in a post-war situation –, which will certainly be part of the calculations of Kiev and its promoters.

As the cases of Georgia, Moldova, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Armenia and Hungary demonstrate, recent protests and changes have shown that the “war curtain” does not last forever and has limited effects, especially when problems persist and people see their living conditions deteriorate day after day. It is no secret that the wars of the Russian Empire contributed greatly to the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917.

More than 100 years later, the West is clearly beginning to move into another pre-revolutionary period, from which only those who know how to put their people first will be saved. Otherwise, don't blame the revolutionaries and the revolutions, or the latent violence caused by decades of constant suffering.

The oligarchy is an expert at demonizing them, but the revolutionary act is nothing more than channeling despair into struggle, using this energy to change a world that threatens to move ever more rapidly towards the abyss. On that day, there is no need to blame the victims, when today they are constantly making excuses for the guilty. Ukraine itself is already enough for this.

This paradox of trust that Ukraine is experiencing is nothing more than the result of what I said earlier. Excusing Volodymyr Zelensky for the degrading functioning of the Ukrainian state, more than disregarding his guilt and democracy itself, consists in obscuring the suffering of those whom he condemns to war every day, whether it be the war of weapons or the arduous struggle for survival in a country he condemns.

*Hugo Dionísio is a lawyer, geopolitical analyst, researcher at the Studies Office of the General Confederation of Portuguese Workers (CGTP-IN).

Originally published on the portal Strategic Culture Foundation.

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