POLL: Ukrainians do not trust Trump. Duh.

A new poll shows that Ukrainians fear that the U.S. President is about to throw them under a Russian bus. Can you blame them? The more surprising bit is that Ukrainians ever trusted Trump....

BY MICHAEL ANDERSEN

In 100 days in power, Donald Trump has not said one positive word about Ukraine, the Ukrainians or their (elected, Donald, elected) president, Volodymyr Zelensky.

In 100 days in power, Trump has, on the other than, often praised and made excuses for the Russian dictator who invaded Ukraine three years ago and has killed 100-200.000 Ukrainians, bombed playgrounds, hospitals, blocks of flats, buses, etc, and turned 12-14 million Ukrainians into refugees.

In the new poll conducted by the New Europe Center in Ukraine, April 10-24, 89% of Ukrainians express a lack of trust in President Trump, only 7% trust the U.S. President.

In a similar poll conducted in November 2024 - just after Trump had won the elections - 45 % of Ukrainians said that they trusted him. 47% did not.

How c/would Ukrainians ever trust Trump?

In fact, the biggest surprise is that so many Ukrainians until recently actually thought (hoped) that a President Trump would do well by them. Because what Trump has done and said since elected is perfectly in line with what he promised/threatened before he won the election in November. Trump (and Vance) long ago, long before winning and taking power, in fact, threatened to cut off Ukraine financially and militarily, and put forward a ‘solution’ based on Russia keeping the 20% of Ukraine it has occupied. That much was clear already last summer.

And Trump’s admiration for the Russian dictator has also been as clear as daylight for at least one decade:

Trump started describing Putin as “a friend” all the way back to 2016, praised the Russian dictator for being “a genius” and “brilliant” when he invaded Crimea in 2014 and “savvy” when he again invaded Ukraine in 2022.

“Putin likes me,” Trump proudly tweeted in 2018. And 99% of what Trump as President has said or suggested since January 20, 2025, has certainly also been very friendly to the Russian dictator, all the way down to excusing Russian bombings as “mistakes” or "[Putin] is only doing what anybody else would do.”

Nevertheless, as late as November 2024 – I know, I know, it seems like another world, because it actually was, although the calendar says that it was only 6 months ago – 45 % of Ukrainians said that they trusted Donald Trump. (47% did not.)

The Ukrainian trust in Trump back then was surprisingly high, much higher than anywhere else in Europe. That same Autumn, poll in France showed that only 16% of the French trusted Trump and 30% of Brits.

The most obvious explanation for the Ukrainians’ high trust in Trump was likely their disappointment in Joe Biden. And, in desperation after almost three years of war, people can be excused for hoping that candidate Trump’s promise of ending the war within 24 hours of taking office was real. It should be remembered that Autumn of 2024 also saw the numbers for President Zelensky and the conviction that Ukraine would win the war and expel the Russian army come tumbling down.

Trump is simply doing what he promised (threatened).

But fair’s fair, President Trump has, in fact, done what candidate Trump promised/threatened/shouted that he would. Maybe it just sounded too outlandish for most of us to actually believe him. A Republican President(ial candidate) in public loving on the Russian dictator? John McCain and Ronald Reagan are spinning.

But Trump’s team is fully onboard; In February, after having met Vladimir Putin a few times, Trump’s envoy to the court of the Russian dictator, property developer Steve Witkoff, proclaimed that a close relationship had developed:

Trump took office January 20, 101 days ago. And since then, his Ukraine agenda - at first rhetorically, but lately, as leaks sieve from the negotiations, also in practical terms - has made many ask themselves whether his ‘peace plan’ was written in Washington or Moscow? There is little that the former KGB agent Kremlin wouldn’t love:

Recognition of Crimea as Russian, unofficial recognition of the territories that Russia occupies (20% of Ukraine), a freezing of the frontline as it is now, no NATO membership for Ukraine, lifting of the sanctions against Russia, enhanced U.S.-Russian economic cooperation, especially in energy and investments.

Again, pretty much all of these points have been clear and public since last summer. What more than anything has brought it home to the Ukrainians that they were wrong if they expected anything positive from Trump, has been the bruising, disrespectful rhetoric from the new U.S. administration: Putin is “a genius” while Zelensky is "a dictator”, “Putin wants peace” while “Zelensky started the war”, it has, says Trump, been easier to deal with Russia (invader) than with Ukraine (invaded) and so on - and it only gets worse from there. Nobody with a smidgeon of interest in Ukraine will ever forget the Trump-Vance ambush on Zelensky in the Oval Office.

Many Ukrainians have expressed shock and disgust over Trump’s repeated eagerness to humiliate their president - and thus their country. Sarcastic memes flourished after Trump and Vance went for Zelensky for not wearing a suit in the Oval Office.

“90% (distrust) is too high a figure to ignore. It’s not just an emotional or irrational reaction,” the New Europe Center says about their recent poll.

“It is likely that this figure reflects not only disappointment with the failure to achieve quick peace, but also concern over the means by which the White House is pursuing its peacemaking goals. For example, Donald Trump considered it premature to discuss security guarantees for Ukraine.“

“Meanwhile, as last year’s opinion poll showed, a majority of Ukrainians (64.1%) believed that negotiations with Russia should not take place without concrete security guarantees from the West. The reasoning: Russia would resume the war after a short pause.”

So far, the Trump administration has not said one single concrete word about the so-called “robust security guarantees” they are promising the Ukrainians. Not one single, concrete word. It sounds a bit like “I’ll have that war finished in 24 hours.”

“That 90% is a call to the United States to revise its approach to Ukraine,” the New Europe Center writes, “an approach that, at times, seemed more in line with Russia’s revanchist vision than with international law.”

In my own little quick ‘poll’ - among a few dozen Ukrainian friends and colleagues - the word most used to describe the U.S. President was “dovboyob”. I am not going to translate that, but if you have an interest in Ukraine, you can probably guess what it means.