Adrian Karatnycky is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and the author of “Battleground Ukraine: From Independence to the War with Russia.”

The vast corruption scandal unfolding in Ukraine has deeply damaged the country’s image. It has also severely eroded trust in President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, turning him into a lame duck at home.

Involving a plot to extort around $100 million from Ukraine’s energy sector, the scandal has so far engulfed Zelenskyy’s Justice Minister German Galushchenko, Energy Minister Svitlana Hrynchuk, as well as officials from the country’s atomic energy agency and senior officials from the State Bureau of Investigation.

Most damaging to Zelenskyy, however, is that the allegations extend to his most trusted allies: Former business partner Tymur Mindich is said to be at the center of the schemes. And the highly powerful yet unpopular Chief of Staff Andriy Yermak is being accused by adversaries of subverting and impeding the work of the country’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor, whose offices uncovered the widespread conspiracy — now called “Mindichgate.”

Domestically, these revelations are already causing a seismic shift in Zelenskyy’s political fortunes, contributing to widespread anger. And while there’s no evidence of personal corruption by the president, his style of rule and reliance on governing with the help of a group of pals and cronies has worn thin.

Significantly, Zelenskyy came to power on a wave of high-minded rhetoric promising to root out corruption and replace generations of dishonest officials with new faces of integrity. But his inflated assurances have now been punctured by the misrule that’s being revealed each day in plot twists as riveting as a Netflix crime series.

So, what, if anything, can he do to restore confidence?

In office for nearly six-and-a-half years now, Zelenskyy was long riding high in the polls, bolstered by his courage and inspirational leadership in the face of Russia’s brutal war.

In recent months, however, the public has started to look for fresh leaders amid growing discontent over his highly centralized, insular and — at times — authoritarian rule. In October, well before the current scandal unfolded, polls showed only one in four Ukrainians wanted Zelenskyy to run for office again once the war ended. And were he to run, they showed him being handily defeated by Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, the popular former commander of Ukraine’s armed forces whom Zelenskyy dismissed.

According to opposition Deputy Yaroslav Zheleznyak, who played a crucial role in exposing the corruption scandal, polls as yet unpublished now show Zelenskyy losing a further 40 percent of his support, suggesting his electoral base now stands at around 25 percent, making him a lame-duck president.

So low is Zelenskyy’s support and so damaging the effect of the corruption crisis that, speaking anonymously, individuals who have worked closely with the president and his inner circle have now hinted he may not seek a second term once circumstances permit a vote. It’s a possibility that’s bolstered by numerous reports stating Ukraine’s first lady Olena Zelenska has long felt the president shouldn’t seek reelection given the extension of his current term and the toll his absence has taken on his family. Furthermore, the crisis has not only reduced Zelenskyy’s chances of reelection, it has also opened the field to new potential challengers.

But while public discontent with Zelenskyy is at a wartime peak, the Ukrainian public understands it would be perilous to engage in destabilizing mass protest amid modest Russian territorial advances — a responsible civic position that was confirmed to me by Serhiy Sternenko, a firebrand civic activist with millions of followers on social media.

And though Zelenskyy’s position as president remains secure given the wartime setting, as a lame-duck president his main aim must be to restore public confidence in the government, ensure the functioning of an effective parliament, and demonstrate to the international community that Ukraine is being governed both effectively and transparently.

To achieve these goals, Zelenskyy would be well advised to begin wide-ranging consultations with civic leaders, anti-corruption experts and the patriotic opposition, aiming to create a technocratic government of trusted officials. He also needs to dismantle his highly centralized presidential rule by limiting his own powers to the areas of defense, national security and foreign policy, and by drastically reducing the powers of his team of presidential aides. This could be done by transferring their domestic and economic policy responsibilities to a restructured government and parliament instead.

The fact is, if Zelenskyy doesn’t act, others may do it for him.

For years, the Ukrainian leader’s power has derived from his control of a parliamentary majority through his Servant of the People party, but fissures are now appearing within that base. A report from investigative news site Ukrainska Pravda indicates that the head of the party’s parliamentary faction, David Arakhamia, has now joined calls for Zelenskyy to reform the presidential office and replace Yermak. It also reports that Danylo Hetmantsev, a powerful legislator heading the parliament’s finance committee, is planning to create a new party. And on Wednesday, lawmaker Mykyta Poturayev announced his own initiative to create a new parliamentary majority, which would include members of the patriotic opposition.

To respond to this pressure and restore confidence, Zelenskyy must try to assemble a strong team that holds the public’s trust, as well as that of Ukraine’s allies. Recruiting such competent officials in the current chaos won’t be easy, but there is a pool of them out there — including First Deputy Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, former Ambassador to the U.S. and Finance Minister Oksana Markarova, and former Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, who was removed from office for unclear reasons.

In short, while the damage done to Zelenskyy is likely irreversible, the president has a chance to use the current crisis to set Ukraine on a proper path of greater transparency, and to compensate for diminished support by engaging with and transferring significant authority to a team that enjoys public confidence.

Following such a set of steps — coupled with the vigorous and unimpeded prosecution of those involved in the web of corruption that has been exposed — would ensure morale in Ukraine remains strong. It would strengthen the country’s hand amid reports that the U.S. administration is pressuring Kyiv to make major concessions to Russia. Above all, it would ensure a firm basis for Ukraine to continue its courageous and effective resistance in this existential war.