Sure, like I said I don’t think it’s really important who is “worse”, it’s not a useful topic of discussion.
I did want to make a couple of counterpoints though
just cause Zelensky is popular, doesn’t necessarily make him a better leader. If we were to do a comparison (which we shouldn’t!) Putin is also widely popular along Russians. In both cases support for a wartime leader is going to rally, especially in Ukraine.
you certainly have infinitely more experience in the country than I do (dividing by zero ofc haha), but wouldn’t you have run into some of the same biases coming in as a foreigner (or foreign-born)? I don’t know your itinerary, and I’m not asking you to share, but the who, when and where is gonna make a difference.
as an example, I was interested in the interviews of the first two people in this video that I saw recently [watch starting at 3:15 till about 20 mins in]: youtu.be/drhgjxSJG6M located in the warzone in eastern Ukraine. Both are supportive of the Russian forces and appear to claim that such support in their local area is widespread.