Clash exposes national rift
In the space of five years, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has undergone more transformations than most politicians see in a lifetime.
First, he was the comedian-turned-president, then he was a wartime hero in military fatigues, and now he risks slipping into the role of embattled leader.
His public falling out with commander-in-chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi has come at the worst possible time. Ukraine finds itself outgunned three-to-one on the battlefield against its Russian aggressors while the United States, its financial lifeline, is holding out on aid.
As the war enters its third painful year, Ukraine’s leadership is fighting along a 1500km front with the Russians, fighting to win crucial supplies from allies, and fighting among itself. It wants to avoid being forced to negotiate unpalatable peace terms, even though the pressure to do so is building.
Zelenskyy appears, to his allies, as stressed now as he has been at any point since the invasion. That was the assessment of a senior European diplomat who speaks with him regularly and asked to remain anonymous.
Zaluzhnyi was fired after reports of their frequent disputes made it clear that the president had lost confidence in his commander-in-chief. The breakdown of the relationship between Ukraine’s two most prominent figures amounts to the biggest internal shakeup since the Russian invasion.
One thing remains unchanged: the Ukrainian president hates the word “stalemate”. It’s a loaded term, one that sits at the core of his spat with Zaluzhnyi, someone worshipped among his soldiers – a former army chief who can take a lot of credit for the resistance few thought Ukraine capable of when it was plunged into the largest armed conflict in Europe since World War II.
Several Western officials in regular contact with the Ukrainian president say that victory remains the only outcome Zelenskyy will countenance.
Two years into the war, Ukraine’s attempts to repel the Russian invaders aren’t going to plan. The war’s duration is sapping morale. The army says it needs to recruit more men.
During the first part of the war, the country “was running on adrenaline”, said Orysia Lutsevych, who runs the Ukraine programme at the London-based Chatham House think tank. “But now it is a completely different situation. There is disappointment, there are bitter feelings.”
The outgoing general commands great personal support. Some Western diplomats privately speculate that his popularity was getting to Zelenskyy, who one official has called thin-skinned.
But people familiar with the military leadership say that at least part of the split revolves around Zelenskyy’s preference for a bolder military plan, which is at odds with what the more cautious Zaluzhnyi had planned for the months ahead. As if to smooth things over, the day after the commander’s ouster, he was honoured with a Hero of Ukraine award.
One aide said that Zaluzhnyi even had a hand in picking his replacement. Oleksandr Syrskyi, who commands the country’s land forces, may be willing to cleave tighter to the president’s military goals but is mistrusted by some on the battlefield, who see him as more ruthless than his predecessor.
When Zelenskyy was elected five years ago, he became the nation’s first leader whose party held a majority in parliament. But recently, he hasn’t always been getting his way during its sessions, which now regularly leak out from behind closed doors. It has been at odds on the question of how to replenish troops fatigued by the war’s demands.
Along with politics in the highest echelons of government, media criticism has returned.
Former commercial rivals still cooperate in an around-the-clock broadcast known as the Telemarathon, but viewership has dropped, and the audience flocks to unregulated social media instead. In recent weeks, the uncertainty around the president’s reboot has uncorked debate over how the war is being waged.
Gone is the youthful demeanour of the president’s first years on the job. Now his hair is greying at the temples. The foreign visitors – Boris Johnson, Ursula von der Leyen, Angelina Jolie – don’t come as often as they used to. Instead, Zelenskyy travels abroad, like he did last month, to Davos and the Baltics, to plead his country’s case.
Foreign officials have noticed a shift in the tone of these visits. Zelenskyy went from arguing that Ukraine would lose without their help to appealing to their instinct to support the winning side. His team remembers how, after Ukraine successfully repelled troops encircling Kyiv, the US overcame its reluctance to send precision HIMARs weapons. Lately, he’s been pointing out that it’s cheaper for allies to fund Ukraine than to risk fighting Russia on their own territory.
As the third year of war approaches, his inner circle knows the much has changed. They have noticed US President Joe Biden’s narrative shift from as-longas-you-need to as-long-as-we-can. They are also attuned to what a return of Donald Trump to the presidency will mean.
The two men have history, with Zelenskyy playing a starring role in Trump’s first impeachment scandal. One Zelenskyy aide said his team wasn’t too gloomy about the prospect of a Trump presidency. He pointed out that back then, Zelenskyy had leverage over Trump but chose not to use it. All that remains to be seen.
His allies acknowledge that Zelenskyy is talismanic. They say none of his predecessors would have been able to rally international support to the same degree. As one senior European official put it, not having him at the helm would make things for Ukraine a lot harder.