Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) head Oleksii Danilov is attributing the ongoing brawl between President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and UAF Commander-in-Chief Gen. Valery Zaluzhny as a Russian plot. Ukrainska Pravda reported yesterday: “Danilov said the Russian agents’ aim is to ‘drive a wedge between the political and military leadership of Ukraine, as well as inflame anti-government sentiments among the population.’ Danilov noted that Russia is trying to take advantage of the ‘so-called tension’ between” the two. Russia is trying to “spread disinformation and propaganda to destabilize the situation in Ukraine.”
Minimally, that means that the outbreak of such discussions are not real, but are manufactured by Moscow, and those who engage in such discussions are spreading Russian disinformation. It wasn’t too long ago that such a warning from the NSDC head would have silenced any open criticism of Zelenskyy’s war policy.
Worse for Danilov, it appears that he attempted to direct his threat so as to include members of Kiev’s intelligence community, including the SBU. Danilov’s comments had appeared earlier in the day in an interview he gave to The Times of London. The Times reported Danilov as telling them that Russia’s conspiracy included the activation of secretive agents within Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU), suggesting that there were members of the SBU who had either commented on the Zelenskyy-Zaluzhny contretemps or were actually supporting General Zaluzhny.
