The number of Ukrainians who consider democracy more important than a strong leader has increased

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Photo illustrative from the OP site

Since 2022, the number of Ukrainians who believe that Ukraine is currently more important for Ukraine than a strong leader has increased by 7 percentages, but the proportion of those who think that the country now needs a strong leader is still greater.

Source: Results of a survey of the Kiev International Institute of Sociology, conducted on July 23 – August 4

Details: Sociologists asked two questions – one asked what is important for Ukraine, and the other emphasized on time – what is important now – democracy or a strong leader.

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In general, more Ukrainians prefer a democratic system – 48% against 36%, which consider the presence of a strong leader more important.

Compared to December 2023, the number of those who spoke about the democratic system (59% in December 2023 to 48% in the summer of 2025) decreased, but more than those who did not decide-from 8% to 16%.

The growth of those who prefer a strong leader is fixed within the error – from 32% to 36%.

When the respondents were asked what Ukraine needs right now, 48% preferred a strong leader, and 35% declared the importance of the democratic system.

At the same time, compared to July 2022, the number of those who now sees a greater need for the democratic system increased from 27% to 35%, while the number of those who emphasized the importance of a strong leader decreased from 58% in the summer of 2022 to 47% in the summer of 2025.

Sociologists point out that those who do not trust the President have a much greater request for strategically Ukraine to be a democratic system – 63% against 26% who prefer a strong leader.

At the same time, among those who trust the President, thoughts are divided equally – 42% prefer the democratic system, and 44% prefer a strong leader.

The study lasted from July 23 to August 4. The method of telephone interviews on the basis of a random sample of mobile numbers was interviewed by 1,022 respondents aged 18 years, who at the time of the survey lived in the territory of Ukraine, which was controlled by the Government of Ukraine. The sampling was not included in residents of territories that are not temporarily controlled by the authorities of Ukraine (at the same time some of the respondents – IDPs who moved from the occupied territories), and did not conduct surveys with citizens who left abroad after February 24, 2022.

Formally, in normal circumstances, the statistical error of sampling of 1022 respondents (with a probability of 0.95 and taking into account the design effect 1.3) does not exceed 4.1%.

Sociologists point out that in order to avoid the effect of the effect of the order of answers, half of the respondents asked the importance of now, half of the respondents – the importance of the importance (not at this point). Thus, 502 respondents were now answered about the importance of the importance of 520 respondents, which gives an error (with a probability 0.95 and taking into account the design effect 1.3) not more than 5.8%.

KIIS also emphasizes that in the war, in addition to the formal error, some systematic deviation is added. At the same time, sociologists believe that the results still retain high representativeness and allow to analyze the public sentiment of the population.