I have been studying Ukraine for 3 years. In August 2024, in a study conducted through the Portulans Institute in Washington DC, my research team surveyed a random sample of people in Ukraine, before the Kursk incursion. Our survey focused on how the public gets access to trusted information in wartime. We surveyed just over 2,000 respondents about whether they trust various sources, such as traditional media, online sources, but also their President, the Parliament, and the government in general. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is the most trusted – compared to the parliament and the government in general. Moreover, the public is clearly comfortable in challenging the government and the President. They are actively sourcing content on many online platforms and express no sense of living in a dictatorship, as suggested by US President Donald Trump. For Trump to allege or assert that he is a ‘dictator’ is totally wrong and completely inconsistent with our research on how the public gets access to trusted information – as they very much trust their President.

I am an American, and feel that I can and should speak for myself, and only for myself. My opinions are my own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of any institutions supporting this research or my work.

That said, I am shocked, like many others, of how closely Donald Trump’s insulting and false remarks about President Zelensky follow Putin’s disinformation narratives. He has been following this path over the months, but now his claims are patently and demonstrably false. His accusations are so unhinged that I cannot but imagine and hope that many others will contest his claims. He must know that he is doing a proverbial hatchet job on a trusted friend and ally of the United States and NATO countries – based on claims that are far from the facts on the ground. As others have noted, my country – the USA – is rapidly moving into an Orwellian world of propaganda orchestrated by our President. His claims must be contested by those who know better. Speak out. Please don’t be fooled.

To gain a sense of the research on which my comments are based, you can find a recent preliminary report on our research available online. See Goroshko, O., Dutton, W. H., Dembitskyi, S., Chernenko, L., Boiko, N., and Blank, G. (2025), ‘Media Use and Attitudes in Ukraine: A Smart Nation’ (September 17, 2024). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4958986 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4958986

My data on trust in the president and other institutions of the Ukraine government will be published in due course but are available on request. My email is william.dutton@billdutton