Meduza talks to analyst Balázs Jarábik about how war and martial law are reshaping Ukraine’s political landscape
Due to Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukraine has been under martial law for nearly four years. Democratic processes, like elections, remain suspended, effectively freezing domestic politics. With the war ongoing, Ukrainian society and political elites have rallied around President Volodymyr Zelensky. However, since U.S. President Donald Trump returned to the White House intent on brokering a peace deal, signs of political competition have begun to surface. Over the summer, Ukraine witnessed its first major protests since Russia’s full-scale invasion, and long-running conflicts between local authorities and the Zelensky administration have spilled into public view. In a new report for Carnegie’s Ukraine Initiative, analysts Balázs Jarábik and Anatolii Oktysiuk examine Ukraine’s thawing political landscape and what it presages for the powers that be in Kyiv. To learn more about their findings, The Beet editor Eilish Hart spoke to analyst and former diplomat Balázs Jarábik, the founder of the political risk consultancy Minority Report and a partner at R.Politik.
The following interview has been edited and abridged for length and clarity.
— Over the summer, Ukraine saw its first major protests since the start of the full-scale war. Many observers took this as a sign of a domestic political thaw, even as the country remains under martial law. Is this how you interpreted the protests? Or do you trace the “unfreezing” of Ukrainian politics to another event?
— That was definitely a very visible sign of politics returning. But I think the most important thing was really the Trump administration coming in with the declared objective of ending the war. That changed the landscape because the moment you start talking about ending the war, the next issue that comes up in terms of the return of politics is elections.
Now, we know that the war is escalating even further, so we’re not really talking about the return of politics [as yet]. That’s why we used the term “unfreezing.”
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— President Zelensky’s political ratings have fluctuated throughout the war, and his five-year term formally expired in May 2024. However, there appears to be little popular demand for holding elections while the war is ongoing. How would you describe Zelensky’s political standing at this time?
— I would underscore that there is a full consensus among the political elites and society that elections can only be held after there’s some kind of resolution to the war. For example, a sustained ceasefire would not be a full resolution, but it would pave the way for elections. There is also a full consensus that while the war is ongoing, the commander-in-chief — who is the president himself — needs support, although the opposition parties complain about power consolidation and developments they consider undemocratic. If you listen to [former President Petro] Poroshenko’s European Solidarity party, for example, they’re openly debating this. Nevertheless, rallying around the flag and, therefore, around the commander-in-chief, remains the most important [thing].
The war itself is obviously a major factor keeping politics frozen. Then there’s martial law, which gives extra power to the president’s office. They also maintain what I would call a transactional but functional majority in the parliament, although Servant of the People’s single-party majority has been gone for over a year, if not longer. They’re able to get support from various factions on key legislation and sometimes, when it comes to issues related to European integration, even the opposition votes with the government majority.
In wartime, there’s greater control. The president’s office — as well as the president’s company, Kvartal 95 — is really the most effective PR/political communications company, and the president’s office has by far the most resources under its command when it comes to politics. So all these factors are [keeping] the president’s office and the power it has consolidated intact, and this is what’s forming [Zelensky’s] power base.
Given the changes in Ukrainian demographics, regional shifts, and so on, a lot of people are questioning the value of public opinion polls. However, there are certainly very clear trends showing that the president’s trust rating is still high, around 60 percent. And when Zelensky was under pressure from the Trump administration, after the infamous Oval Office meeting in February, there was a [spike] in support for him. (That’s the rally around the flag effect I mentioned before.)
At the same time, the latest polling results show that only 25 percent of [respondents] actually wish for Zelensky to run for president again; Ukrainians want to see new faces in politics. If you really look at the trust ratings, polls show that President Zelensky is trailing behind the former army commander-in-chief [Valerii] Zaluzhnyi and [is only slightly ahead of] the HUR military intelligence head, [Kyrylo] Budanov. So there are definite shifts, and so far, they are toward wartime figures. It’s not a coincidence that the Ukrainian military and the volunteers who supply it are among the most trusted institutions, [with ratings] over 80 percent, according to all polls. So obviously, Ukrainians are looking to these figures as the natural political alternatives.
— Zelensky is known to be quite responsive to public opinion, and he has gone back and forth on whether he would seek re-election. How is he trying to position himself going forward?
— [Zelensky] has hinted that he may not run — and he has the famous quote from the very first year of his presidency, “I’m here for one term.” Coincidentally, he’s still in his first term even in the seventh year. Obviously, this is situational given Russia’s invasion, so that’s not something Zelensky should be held accountable for. To be frank, it’s very hard to tell at this stage [whether he will run again] because I don’t think there’s been a decision.
What we’re seeing now is an unfreezing of politics. At the same time, the president’s office is trying to keep politics under control to the maximum extent, simply because they’re focusing on the war and making sure that Ukraine has the necessary means to fight and defend itself. So politics is secondary in that way. Again, this consensus that Zelensky should receive support as the commander-in-chief is still very valid.
All of the parties are preparing, building their teams. But there are many [technical] issues when it comes to holding elections after such a war, which has had a huge impact on demographics, voter lists, and party structures. Millions of Ukrainians have left [the country]; we only have estimates of how many remain. There’s the issue of who can vote and where [they can vote]. So technical preparations are ongoing only within this debate and discussion. We’re also seeing an effort to postpone election preparations until the war ends. Therefore, it’s a bit of an ambiguous situation.
Key political figures, like [Servant of the People parliamentary faction leader Davyd] Arakhamia and others, are really hedging. Zaluzhnyi is talking to everyone, although he clearly stated that any speculation about his potential political role is [just] speculation because he’s serving the country and the president as Ukraine’s ambassador in London. I think they actually mean it [when they say] that at this stage, everything is just speculation. At the same time, these rumors are also serving as politics because that’s what’s replacing real preparations.
— In October, Zelensky stripped Odesa Mayor Hennadiy Trukhanov of his citizenship and effectively ousted him from his post. Some analysts argue that this is part of a wider effort by Zelensky and his team to centralize power and reshape local politics to their liking. How do you see it?
— The stand-off between the local governments and the president’s office has been going on essentially since before the war, and it never went away. Local governments and mayors have shown themselves to be effective leaders in many ways, from organizing volunteers and firefighting to ensuring energy and other infrastructure works properly — a lot of things rely on the capacity and resources of local governments. So yes, you see political clashes. The [most] famous case is between Kyiv Mayor [Vitali] Klitschko and the president’s office. And you also see that these mayors are trying to form political associations vis-à-vis the center, and these clashes sometimes end up in the limelight.
In the case of Odesa and Mayor Trukhanov, I would say he was quite politically loyal; he tried to show himself as loyal to Ukraine and to Zelensky. But there are a lot of reports about the situation in Odesa being tense because of very strict government policies when it comes to language and desovietization, which is happening very visibly. There’s also derussification, [the removal of Soviet and Russian imperial] monuments, and a lot of local people actually dislike that. So these internal tensions are growing.
I think it’s also [a way of] showing the mayors their intention of controlling the situation, of making sure that a key city like Odesa is under military and direct control. And also of showing that no matter how he tried to show loyalty, Trukhanov, as a mayor, was not considered a credible figure by the president’s office. Obviously, there is a lot of debate over whether the way they did it is legal, let alone democratic, but the president’s office got its way, and he was removed. So this is certainly a precedent and a test case for the rest of the regions.
— The war has radically reshaped Ukraine’s economy: public spending is overwhelmingly concentrated on defense, the state is deeply reliant on Western financial assistance, and poverty levels are rising. What implications do these economic changes have for domestic politics?
— There’s a huge regional shift from the east toward the west, as well as a shift beyond [Ukraine’s] borders, toward the European Union and neighboring countries. Millions of Ukrainians who fled the war at the very beginning now reside near the border, but on the other side, and [people are] still fleeing.
For example, to mitigate protests, the president’s office let young men between the ages of 18 and 22 [leave the country], and now we’re seeing this on a mass scale: around 100,000 people in this age group left. For a lot of military experts, this shows [Kyiv’s] priority at a time when the Ukrainian army is visibly struggling with manpower. What’s the priority: mitigating a political issue and the potential for protests, or defending the country? The president’s office is under a lot of pressure, including politically, and that’s why politics is unfreezing. This is a good [example] of that.
The regional shift is enormous but not well researched. I think that international organizations dealing with reconstruction should focus more on how to react to it in terms of investment, instead of hoping that Ukraine will [eventually] rebuild Donbas. Most of the damage is around the front line: as the war stands right now, Ukraine most likely won’t be able to [rebuild there]. What Ukraine desperately needs is much more connectivity, energy transport, and social infrastructure in the areas it controls. The western regions now have a lot more people, and their social infrastructure is crumbling. The international community, particularly donors, should be reacting to this shift and begin working on roads, transport, and social infrastructure.
— Social cohesion (i.e., the sense that the state and the public are on the same page) has played a critical role in Ukraine’s war effort. Does the return of domestic politics threaten to upset this sense of unity?
— Not at this point. Obviously, the big question is what’s going to happen after the war. The Ukrainians are not only resilient but also remarkably restrained. There are a lot of grievances, including against the president’s office and how politics is being done. But again, so long as the war is ongoing and there’s a common enemy, this just isn’t surfacing.
After the war, there will be key questions about internal security, law enforcement’s ability to maintain law and order, and the political ramifications of ending the war, along with the usual debates over kto vinovat — “who is responsible” for what. Internal security and the ramifications of how Ukraine was managed during the war, why certain decisions were made, that’s inevitably going to be big.
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Interview by Eilish Hart