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Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s video address on Monday night was blunt.
“We need to pull ourselves together,” he said. “We cannot relax or allow ourselves to be divided by disputes or different priorities.”
It was a message to the Ukrainian people feeling the heavy strains of 19 months of Russia’s war of aggression. It was also a message to his own team of advisers and military officers whose morale has been hammered by limited progress on the battlefield and deep concern over faltering western support for Ukraine’s war effort.
Kyiv’s ironclad communications discipline has faltered in recent days as differences over messaging and potentially strategy have spilled into the open.
Over the weekend Zelenskyy repudiated the assessment of his own top military commander that the war with Russia was at a “stalemate”.
In an interview published alongside an opinion piece and a longer essay in The Economist last week, Ukraine’s chief of the general staff Valeriy Zaluzhnyi used the word “stalemate” to describe the state of the war. The general’s point was that fighting had become “positional” and that big technological breakthroughs would be needed to change the dynamic and give Ukraine back the advantage.
It was a lengthy exposition of his military thinking and an attempt to argue for more sophisticated weaponry. But Zelenskyy and his closest aides believe that by using the word “stalemate”, Zaluzhnyi gave the wrong signal to western allies — that there was no point in sending more weapons to Ukraine because it cannot win the war.
Ihor Zhovkva, one of Zelenskyy’s senior advisers, appeared on Ukraine’s national news broadcaster on Friday to denounce the general’s public intervention. Zhovkva said there were private forums where Zaluzhnyi could voice his opinions. The op-ed had “made (Russia’s) work easier”, he added.
As well as the public rebuke meted out by his office, Zelenskyy asserted his authority over his military chief by firing the head of the special forces, Viktor Khorenko.
Khorenko told journalists he found out about his sacking through the media and claimed that Zaluzhnyi had not been aware of the decision.
The dismissal was a “signal to Ukraine’s military and first of all to Zaluzhnyi — to show who has the power”, said Oleksiy Goncharenko, an opposition MP.
Following a long-awaited summer counteroffensive that has fallen short of its objective to free territories under Russian occupation, Zelenskyy also told NBC news on Sunday the Ukrainian military would be coming up with “different plans, with different operations in order to be able to move forward”.
Ukrainian forces are continuing to press Russia’s along the frontline but fortified Russian defences and deep minefields have resulted in an advance of just 17km in five months.
A gloomy account of Ukraine’s prospects — and a less than flattering picture of a stubborn Zelenskyy — also appeared in a report by Simon Shuster in Time magazine late last month. Shuster is the author of a forthcoming biography of Zelenskyy and has enjoyed close access to the president and his inner circle.
Shuster recalls one of Zelenskyy’s closest aids saying the president “deludes himself . . . We’re out of options. We’re not winning. But try telling him that.”
The reaction to the article in Zelenskyy’s entourage was confused. Andriy Yermak, head of the presidential office, described it on Telegram as a “very important text” before deleting the post. Others said it reached the wrong conclusions or questioned the veracity of its sources.
Rumours of tensions between Zelenskyy and his top military commander have surfaced before — for example over Ukraine’s staunch defence of Bakhmut, an eastern city with little strategic value — but have proved hard to substantiate.
“There is a definite political crisis happening in the presidential administration,” said Goncharenko. “I don’t really understand their reaction because Zaluzhnyi wrote about things that are obvious. I think the reaction reflects the fact that they don’t just see Zaluzhnyi as a general but as political competition.”
Past opinion polls have shown Zaluzhnyi to be the best placed figure who could challenge the president and that Ukrainians want to see former soldiers take on a bigger role in political life. However, there is no evidence he harbours political ambitions and Zelenskyy on Monday ruled out holding elections during the war.
An official in the office of the president denied that there was disunity between the political leadership and top brass, describing it as disinformation and “one of the favourite Russian narratives . . . it comes up at any suitable occasion”.
Read the full article here
