As the Russian army relentlessly advances, the regime of Ukraine’s acting president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has moved aggressively to consolidate power in Kiev, triggering an outbreak of anti-Zelenskyy demonstrations yesterday. Zelenskyy and the head of his Presidential Office Andrii Yermak moved in the last 24-48 hours to take over Ukraine’s supposedly independent anti-corruption organizations, and thousands came out in protest, with the largest turnout in Kiev, reviving images of early 2013-14 Maidan demonstrations.
Russian forces may be about to take the city of Pokrovsk, according to both Ukrainian and Russian reports. Newsweek quoted UAF Staff Sergeant Dmitro Shchipko’s posting on X: “Very... very bad news...We need every ... donation for the Pokrovsk front. Things are going terribly wrong.” They also cited Emil Kastehelmi, military analyst with the Black Bird Group, who stated: “Russians have recently made more gains especially on the eastern flank of Pokrovsk, where the latest advances are beginning to pose a significant issue for the defense of the city.”
Zelenskyy is also in trouble on the home front. On Monday, July 21, the SBU and the Prosecutor General’s Office conducted a special operation to “neutralize Russian influence on NABU,” the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, conducting 80 searches. NABU, which had targeted several of the Zelenskyy-Yermak team for financial corruption (e.g., former Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, former Unity Minister Aleksey Chernyshov, and former Vice Prime Minister Olga Stefanishina), stated that the searches were done without court warrants. Within 24 hours, the Verkhovna Rada voted to put the “independent” NABU under the Prosecutor General’s office, allowing Zelenskyy’s regime to choose who is corrupt and who is not.
