Ukraine’s former Commander-in-Chief, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, now ambassador to London, in an interview with the Associated Press published yesterday, aired publicly for the first time his two major grievances with his ‘boss,’ Ukraine’s acting president, Volodymyr Zelensky. First, he described that, hours after a “tense meeting” with Zelensky in September 2022, dozens of agents from the Security Service (SBU) raided his office. He indicated that this was Zelensky’s effort to intimidate him. He said that he immediately called Andriy Yermak, then the powerful head of the Office of the President, warning him that he would “repel this attack, because I know how to fight.”
Next, he blamed Zelensky for sabotaging, in 2023, his (and NATO’s) military offensive to concentrate on a drive to the Sea of Azov, which would cut the Russian positions and leave Crimea with no land route to Russia. However, Zelensky diluted the deployment by spreading the troops out along a broad front.
With the launching of this public attack by his ambassador to London, Zelensky would be shown to be weak by leaving Zaluzhny in London or would make Zaluzhny into the man to rally around, to replace him. In the latest IPSOS poll, Zaluzhny has 23% to Zelensky’s 20%. However, Zaluzhny is no hero, being closer to the neo-Nazi military and paramilitary layers in Ukraine, as well as to powerful circles in London. Whether or not Zelensky moves against Zaluzhnyi now, the AP interview is viewed as the launching of an open contest for the nominal head of Ukraine.
