More than half of Ukrainians say opposition faces systemic targeting – KIIS survey

The majority of Ukrainians surveyed – 60% – believe that the imposition of sanctions, in particular against Petro Poroshenko, is an attempt to divert attention from the difficult situation on the front or an attempt to neutralize the opposition on the eve of negotiations with Russia and possible elections; 51% believe that political persecution of the opposition is quite or very widespread. This is evidenced by the results of a survey conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) on September 19-28.

As noted in a KIIS press release on the website on Monday, 3 surveys were conducted on the topic of sanctions that were introduced on February 12, 2025 in accordance with the decision of the National Security and Defense Council "On the Application of Personal Special Economic and Other Restrictive Measures (Sanctions)", and which Poroshenko fell under. The surveys on February 14-24 and May 15-17, 2025 asked how Ukrainians feel about this. Respondents were given three answer options and could choose one or more answers. In September 2025, the following questions were asked again.

"In general, the majority of respondents - 60% (in May - 56%) - chose either the option "an attempt to distract attention from the difficult situation at the front" (among all respondents, 35% chose it), or the option "an attempt to neutralize the opposition on the eve of negotiations with Russia and possible elections" (34% among all respondents)," sociologists record.

At the same time, they believe that these sanctions are an attempt by law enforcement agencies to really punish the guilty - 33% (in May 2025 it was 34%). The remaining 11% could not decide on their opinion.

In particular, among those who trust President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, 45% chose either the option "an attempt to divert attention from the difficult situation on the front" or the option "an attempt to neutralize the opposition on the eve of negotiations with Russia and possible elections" (versus 43% who believe that this is an attempt by law enforcement agencies to punish the guilty).

Among those who do not trust him, 79% chose either the option "an attempt to divert attention from the difficult situation on the front" or the option "an attempt to neutralize the opposition on the eve of negotiations with Russia and possible elections" (versus 15% who believe that this is an attempt by law enforcement agencies to punish the guilty).

In addition, KIIS in a September survey asked respondents how widespread, in their opinion, cases of politically motivated persecution of the opposition are in Ukraine now. It turned out that 51% of Ukrainians believe that political persecution of the opposition is quite or very common (of which 20% consider such cases to be very common, and 31% consider them quite common). They believe that such cases are not very common or practically absent – ​​37%. The remaining 11% could not answer the question.

Among those who do not trust President Zelenskyy, 70% consider politically motivated persecution of the opposition to be a fairly or very common practice (of which 43% consider such a practice to be very common). At the same time, among those who trust the president, quite a lot also say that such a practice is widespread – 37%.

Executive Director of KIIS Anton Hrushetsky, commenting on the survey results, noted that preventing politically motivated persecution of opposition representatives is a necessary condition for the further development of Ukraine as a "fully functioning democracy." "If there are objective grounds for investigating the activities of individual opposition representatives (for example, involvement in corrupt practices or anti-Ukrainian activities), - he notes, - there should be transparent communication with reliable evidence of criminal acts (which would convince the public that there is no political component in the investigation)".

"In addition to democratic development, constructive interaction between the authorities and the opposition is a necessity for achieving success in the war. Internal strife weakens Ukraine and makes it easier for the Russian enemy (who will gladly use any line of tension in society, for example, between the authorities and the opposition, to "promote" a split). Joint efforts will make Ukraine stronger and even more impregnable for the enemy," he said.

On September 19-28, 2025, KIIS conducted its own all-Ukrainian public opinion poll "Omnibus", to which, at the request of the public organization Center for Strategic Communications "Forum", questions were added about sanctions against P. Poroshenko and about the prevalence of politically motivated persecution of the opposition. Method - telephone interviews based on a random sample of mobile phone numbers in all regions of Ukraine (territory controlled by the Government of Ukraine). Sample – 1,029 respondents. Adults (aged 18 and older) citizens of Ukraine were interviewed who, at the time of the survey, lived in the territory of Ukraine controlled by the Government of Ukraine. Formally, under normal circumstances, the statistical error of such a sample (with a probability of 0.95 and taking into account the design effect of 1.3) did not exceed 4.1% for indicators close to 50%. Under war conditions, in addition to the specified formal error, a certain systematic deviation is added.