Zelenskyy Tops Polish Trust Poll for Foreign Leaders

The latest February 2026 survey by the Public Opinion Research Center (CBOS) provides a comprehensive picture of Poles' trust in key world leaders. The leader of the ranking remains, albeit with clearly lower ratings than years ago, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. 49% of respondents express trust in him. This result, while high, reflects a significant erosion of trust capital compared to the July 2022 survey, conducted a few months after the full-scale Russian invasion. Back then, as many as 86% of Poles declared trust in the Ukrainian leader, which means a drop of 37 percentage points. In second place with a 36% trust result is French President Emmanuel Macron. Distrust towards him is declared by 27% of respondents, and 20% maintain a neutral stance towards him. Third place is taken by the head of the Italian government, Giorgia Meloni, with 35% support. In her case, attention is drawn to the high, reaching 28%, percentage of people who declare they do not know this politician or have no formed opinion about her. The study was based on an eleven-point scale, where the extreme points were defined as deep distrust (-5) and very high trust (+5). Trust surveys regarding foreign leaders have a long tradition in Poland and serve not only to diagnose social moods but also indicate the priorities of foreign policy and the geopolitical sympathies of society. In the past, high trust was enjoyed by, for example, German Chancellor Angela Merkel or Pope John Paul II. In addition to the top three, the poll covered a wide range of politicians active on the international stage. Respondents assessed, among others, their attitude towards European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, former and potential future US President Donald Trump, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, CDU Chairman Friedrich Merz, British opposition leader Keir Starmer, as well as leaders of countries often perceived as controversial or enemies of the West: Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko, and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The results concerning these latter figures, although not revealed in the available excerpts, likely place them at the opposite pole of the trust scale. The decline in support for Zelenskyy may reflect the phenomenon of aid fatigue and the protracted nature of the war, which has ceased to be a shocking event and has become part of the daily information landscape. Simultaneously, his maintained leading position indicates that solidarity with Ukraine in Polish society still has strong foundations. The results concerning Giorgia Meloni are interesting in the context of her right-wing political profile, which in Poland traditionally could have counted on higher support among the conservative electorate. The high percentage of "don't know" responses in her case suggests that her international image is not yet fully established in the awareness of Polish respondents. 37 p.p. — Decline in trust towards Zelenskyy since 2022 The survey methodology, based on a scale from -5 to +5, allows for a more subtle analysis of attitudes than a simple "trust/distrust" question. It allows for capturing the intensity of these feelings. The presented percentage results likely concern the percentage of people who indicated positive (trust) or negative (distrust) values, while some respondents may have chosen the neutral value of zero. The total percentage of responses to the question about Zelenskyy and Macron indicates that in both cases, approximately 7-17% of respondents did not answer, which is typical for questions about international figures.