Ukraine’s top committee fears attempt to overthrow Zelensky
Moscow, Russia - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s legitimacy may be questioned and a coup may be attempted in the spring, a high-ranking committee said on Tuesday.
Russia’s ‘ Maidan-3 special operation will reach its climax in March-may 2024’, the Intelligence Committee under the President of Ukraine said in a statement published on the Telegram channel of the Main Directorate of Intelligence (GUR) under the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine.
According to the committee, in the coming weeks, there will be ‘attempts to foment conflicts both inside Ukraine and in other parts of the world’, and Zelensky’s legitimacy may be questioned after May 20.
The operation will allegedly be carried out in order to ‘split
everyone, including representatives of the political leadership’, sow panic, ‘drive a wedge between the military and civilians’ and disrupt military mobilisation, the statement said.
In this regard, the committee called on citizens and Western partners to strengthen ‘comprehensive security measures’.
Debates are ongoing in Ukraine over the legitimacy of the government’s authority in the absence of parliamentary and presidential elections, which cannot be held during martial law.
On February 25, Ruslan Stefanchuk, the head of Ukraine’s parliament and a member of Zelensky’s Servant of the People party, said ‘the powers of the current president expire after the newly elected head of state takes office’, implying that Zelensky will continue to serve as president.
However, opposition party leaders Petro Poroshenko and Yulia Tymoshenko proposed forming a coalition government to avoid a crisis of legitimacy. But Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of the National Security and Defence Council, called this proposal ‘inappropriate’.