Sociologist Golovakha on the protests and trust in the authorities

At the height of the new wave of “cardboard” protests, the Director of the Institute of Sociology of the NAS of Ukraine, Corresponding Member of the NAS of Ukraine, Doctor of Philosophical Sciences, Professor Yevhen Golovakha gave an interview to Suspilne, published in text form and as a video on YouTube. In a situation where events were changing not merely by the day but several times within a day, where the news feed resembled machine-gun fire, where the president was meeting constantly with senior commanders and with Fedorov in search of a way out and of a broadly acceptable compromise, while the protests went on — offering scholarly analysis was like picking scalding potatoes out of a fire with bare hands. So the scholar spoke weighing every word, aware that any forecast of how events would unfold might be sharply corrected by life itself faster than the interview could be published.

Journalist Olena Removska opened the conversation by asking her guest how he read these heated events as a sociologist. What public demand actually lies behind these protests?

“I see this,” the sociologist replied, “as a result of a civil society functioning in Ukraine, one that exists even in such hard conditions. And I hope that civil society will be heard. Let us recall that at the end of 2025 and in January 2026, during a difficult winter, there was a decline in public mood. Yet over the past six months we have observed a rise in many of the indicators that determine a society's resilience in resisting aggression. And the figure of Fedorov as minister of defence — this happens sometimes — became firmly linked in mass consciousness with those successes. Fedorov acquired, I would say, legendary features in mass consciousness, and the demand for his return sounds like a demand for justice to be restored.

To the journalist's question, “Which factors converged at a single point to make these protests possible at all?”, the professor pointed to an accumulation of tension in society that had been breaking through — as, for example, in the sharp conflict between young people in Lviv and police officers and servicemen from the military enlistment office.

“When in 2025 we asked people, ‘What problems do you see for Ukraine right now?', it was the problem of mobilisation that more than half of citizens — the largest share — named as the main unresolved problem. Corruption and the low standard of living came after it. But in first place was the problem of mobilisation. So the mood was already there. And it is connected with people being under strain. There are, after all, many losses; the degree of neuroticism and anxiety is rising.

Young people have more difficulty coping with the war. For instance, the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology asked what concessions could be made in order to stop the war. In their answers young people were willing to accept far greater concessions than the older generation. Because it is the young who have to fight. And for the young that is a hard prospect. So if the war continues, we have to reckon with how the situation is perceived by young people.

Why did young people come out to the Franko Theatre to protest against Fedorov's dismissal? Because he gave them hope. You see, hope that we would win had been gradually declining. That is visible in the surveys conducted since 2022. But over the past six months encouraging developments have appeared — constant strikes on the Russians, the halt in their advance. A new tactic of warfare in which drones prevail and keep the enemy from moving forward. And that was linked to the figure of Fedorov as the new minister of defence, as the person who set those new mechanisms in motion. They believed in him. They came to believe that a likely victory is no longer as distant as it seemed.

The journalist recalled that Syrskyi had become the antagonist of these protests. Is that not a somewhat dangerous split in people's perceptions?

Yevhen Golovakha replied that he sees in it a certain competition of generations. Young people find it easier to relate to the figure of Fedorov, who embodies new approaches and the use of new technologies in the war, so that drones do more of the fighting, artificial intelligence is used, and so on. The young people who come out to the “cardboard” protests are counting on a representative of a generation closer to their own — and they place their hopes in him, because they really do live in an entirely new world that older people find harder to adapt to. In the eyes of many, Fedorov acquired a special status. Like it or not, he is associated with the hope of a successful end to the war within a foreseeable time. And so, when he was dismissed, many people simultaneously perceived it as the dismissal of their hopes.

There are still almost no surveys showing how public opinion as a whole regards this situation. Only the marketing and sociological firm Gradus has given a figure: 61% of respondents supported Fedorov. And only 15% supported the president's decision to dismiss him.

Fedorov is the new generation. He is a new strategy that counts on new technical means of waging war. Syrskyi is traditional war, in which he had to resolve the problems of coordinating all the units subordinate to him. This conflict was simply bound to happen: “Fedorov was not a politician. His rating as a politician in mass consciousness was very low — as a hypothetical presidential candidate, say. Zaluzhnyi, yes; Zelenskyi, yes; then Budanov. And Fedorov was somewhere down there, you understand. Nowhere. That is, he was not a politician. And now he has been made one. A legendary politician, at that. And he confirmed it with his briefing, showing that he has already become a politician. There he used the methods of influencing mass consciousness that are characteristic of politicians.”

For us to mount a powerful resistance, Yevhen Golovakha stressed, several conditions are needed. There has to be faith, that is, trust. Hope — that is, that we expect to win. And killing it is very dangerous. And there has to be social consolidation, solidarity — among citizens above all. Also between citizens and the authorities, and among the representatives of the authorities. Without all of that, our capacity for resistance is substantially reduced.

As for solidarity, among citizens we still have it. Citizens on the whole support one another. Strange as it may seem, at the horizontal level there are almost no conflict situations. Despite all the incredible differences, suffering and losses, Ukrainians support each other well. That is an astonishing example. As for solidarity with the authorities: recall Zelenskyi's rating — no president in peacetime ever came close to such figures. Before this episode [the government reshuffle] he had 60% support. Now, in connection with these events, there is a risk of losing it.

A country going through such difficult times is adding to all the risks it already carries one more, connected with internal deconsolidation. If there is a certain degree of confrontation within society, that clearly adds problems. So this in particular has to be taken into account.

The head of academic sociology in Ukraine analysed a number of further questions put to him by the journalist. His interview with Suspilne on an acutely topical subject at the height of the protests testifies that the country's sociologists keep a finger on the pulse of public mood, public opinion and social change.