Zelenskiy's approval rating rises in Ukraine after Trump spat, poll shows

By Olena Harmash

KYIV (Reuters) - President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's approval rating has risen by 10 percentage points since his White House spat with U.S. President Donald Trump, a poll by a leading Ukrainian pollster showed on Friday.

The poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) showed that 67% of respondents trusted Zelenskiy in March, up from 57% a month earlier.

The survey was conducted from February 14 to March 4 - a challenging time for Zelenskiy as Kyiv's relations with the United States, its biggest military backer, plunged into crisis after the Oval Office meeting on February 28.

Anton Hrushetskyi, KIIS' executive director, said the poll showed Ukrainians were rallying behind Zelenskiy more than three years after Russia's full-scale invasion.

"Ukrainians perceive the rhetoric of the new U.S. administration as an attack on the whole of Ukraine and all Ukrainians," Hrushetskyi said in a statement.

He said Ukrainians want peace but not a peace that comes at too high a cost.

"Ukrainians really want peace, but our results consistently show that the vast majority are against peace on any terms," he said.

Zelenskiy, now 47, was elected Ukraine's president in 2019. Since the Russian invasion in February 2022, he has became a symbol of Ukrainian resistance.

After last week's meeting, Trump said that Zelenskiy - whom he had already branded a "dictator" - was an obstacle to his vision of bringing peace to Ukraine.

The U.S. has since then paused military aid to Ukraine and intelligence sharing.

Zelenskiy has tried to repair ties, saying this week that Kyiv was ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible and work under Trump's leadership, calling the way things had gone in Washington "regrettable".

The pollsters surveyed 1,029 people via telephone interviews, and the results were similar across the country, they said. But in the east Zelenskiy's trust ratings were lower - at about 60%.

Ukraine's eastern regions are where the fiercest fighting is taking place, with Russian troops devastating cities and towns and taking village after village.

The poll showed that 29% of respondents did not trust Zelenskiy at the start of March, down from 37% at the start of February.

(Reporting by Olena Harmash, Editing by Timothy Heritage)