The MSM has started to recognize the state of undeclared civil war in Ukraine between President Volodymyr Zelensky and General Valery Zaluzhny.
The Economist published a piece called Russia is poised to take advantage of political splits in Ukraine.
This comes as an encore to the NYT’s Zelensky Rebuke of Top General Signals Rift in Ukrainian Leadership, and to the WaPo’s As war frustrations rise, stalemate tests Zelensky and top general Zaluzhny, among so many others.
When the war between Russia and Ukraine broke, ‘competitive politics’ went into hibernation.
But now, Economist hears, Ukraine is ‘unstable’. Zelensky’s attempts to ‘centralize decision making’ and ‘shut down dissent’ are deepening the divide.
Once again, President’s aides are ‘talking out of school’, and revealing the tense state of affairs.
“Cracks have emerged not only on political lines but, most worryingly, between the military and political leadership. Relations between President Volodymyr Zelensky and his commander-in-chief Valery Zaluzhny are understood to be terrible. The differences of opinion were first reported in summer last year. A recent candid interview by The Economist with the general, in which he declared that Ukraine’s war had reached a stalemate, brought that conflict into the open. Mr Zelensky publicly rebuked his general for the headlines. In a later interview he appeared to warn Mr Zaluzhny to stick to military affairs rather than ‘do politics’.
A senior government source suggests the open conflict in the leadership was a ‘predictable’ result of a stalled counter-offensive operation that had ‘not gone to plan’. The official says Mr. Zaluzhny was possibly unwise to contradict the more optimistic public positions of his president, but few inside the government could quibble with his sober conclusions. A blame game is now underway about who is responsible for the failure. ‘The politicians are saying their generals are Soviet-trained twits. And the generals are saying the politicians are interfering twits. Victory has many fathers, but no one wants to parent a stalemate’.”
Another disturbing revelation is a criminal investigation ‘into the defense of southern Ukraine’.
“Mr. Zaluzhny is, say some reports, currently named only as a witness to the probe; but that may change into something more serious. Allies say the possibility of a criminal charge is designed to keep him in line. His media engagement could be seen as an insurance policy, a general-staff source suggests.”
Opinion polls have the president with a trust of net +32% – less than half that of Zaluzhny (+70%).
No wonder Zelensky canceled the elections.
Sputnik reported on the rift:
“‘We can hypothesize at least three reasons’, Tiberio Graziani, chairman at Vision & Global Trends – International Institute for Global Analyses, told Sputnik, ‘the duration of the conflict has worn out the military cadres; the loss of credibility of the current political conduct of the conflict managed by Zelensky and, indirectly by NATO, the EU and the US; the growing awareness among military leaders that negotiations need to be reached’.”
Sputnik mentions a series of events related: Gennady Chastyakov, assistant to the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, died in a gift bomb terrorist attack while celebrating his birthday on November 6.
Zelensky also dismissed special operations forces chief Viktor Khorenko and the commander of the medical forces, Tatyana Ostashchenko, without consulting Ukraine’s top general.
Also, regarding the investigation into the Ukrainian Army’s failure to withstand Russia’s advance in February-March 2022:
“Still, the nickname for the inquiry in the Ukrainian press is ‘Zaluzhny case’, suggesting he could become one of the main suspects. Citing a general staff source, The Economist suggested the commander-in-chief’s recent ‘media engagement could be seen as an insurance policy’.
[…] In some sense, the Western media is presenting Zaluzhny as a potential alternative, thus fanning the tensions further, per Graziani. ‘The rift that seems to exist between Zaluzhny and Zelensky is also a product of a Western narrative, in the sense that the construction of an ‘alternative’ figure to Zelensky embodied by the Ukrainian commander emerges from the Western media’, he remarked.”
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