February 1, 2024 - 10:00am
The warfare in Ukraine dominating headlines over the past week has taken on a fratricidal flavour. Largely political in nature, it has been, if not literally fatal, arguably more poisonous. On Monday, scraps of a rumour made it online: Volodymyr Zelenskyy was about to fire his Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Valerii Zaluzhnyi. Apparently the two had a meeting at which the Ukrainian President told him the news personally.
Cue the kind of outrage that any politically astute government should have predicted. After the general refused to resign, Zelenskyy decided to go back on the decision — for now, at least. Since the 2023 counteroffensive that heralded so much but delivered so little, the once near-jubilant mood in Ukraine has turned gloomy. “People are angry,” my friend Nataliya told me. “People are saying they don’t want to die for Zelenskyy. The mood changed in autumn after the counteroffensive. Our politicians said many things, including that we would liberate Melitopol [one of the occupied cities]. Nothing happened.”
As head of the army, Zaluzhnyi obviously had to take some responsibility, though if Western weapons had arrived in time this situation wouldn’t have come about. Britain and its allies have their own portion of blame to accept.
But there is a further issue. As Zelenskyy’s numbers have declined, Zaluzhnyi’s have risen. He is practically the most popular figure in Ukraine (alongside intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov). A December poll from the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology had 62% of Ukrainians saying they trust the President (down from 84% in the same poll in December 2022), with Zaluzhnyi at 88%. Other polling has Zelenskyy’s trust rating significantly lower. There is a feeling that the presidential administration wants to neuter a possible rival.
If this is indeed the case, it seems a foolish way to achieve that outcome. The reaction earlier this week made clear that Zelenskyy will only appear petty if he does fire his general. He will become not stronger but weaker. Zaluzhnyi will become a martyr, a powerful thing to be for anyone with political ambitions — which up to now he has shown no indication of having.
It looks like the presidential decree sacking Zaluzhnyi may still be imminent. But we must be wary of over-egging matters. As Adam Ure of Lvivski Consulting, and the former head of disinformation capability at the FCDO, tells me, “Russian state sources have already pounced on the latest claims and used them to their advantage, exaggerating the supposed divisions and the alleged structural problems in Ukraine’s defence.”
As Ure also points out, this speaks to a longstanding pattern of the Russians taking any opportunity to undermine the Kyiv leadership’s attempts to project a united image to its partners. The country’s armed forces will continue to support the President no matter what changes take place in the military command. Russia will continue to try to exaggerate any apparent internal splits for its own ends.
How relations between the political and military leadership will develop in the short term remains unclear. Things are less than ideal on the frontlines, as I learned first-hand from the soldiers there the last time I visited. Morale has been higher. But what is equally clear is that the Ukrainians will not just give up their country — the understanding that Russia cannot be allowed to take Ukraine remains as deep and as pervasive as it has ever been. The Ukrainians continue to fight, not just for themselves, but for an increasingly embattled West.
David Patrikarakos is UnHerd‘s foreign correspondent. His latest book is War in 140 characters: how social media is reshaping conflict in the 21st century. (Hachette)
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SubscribeThe Ukrainians may think they are fighting for Ukraine but in reality they are fighting for the Neocon plan to preserve US hegemony and allow the plundering of Russia, as happened under Yeltsin.
So under what circumstances would you consider that Ukrainians should fight for Ukraine ? And what exactly are they supposed to do when they are invaded ?
It’s more of the ritual nonsense about how Ukraine has no agency and its citizens no right to take their own decisions. I guess you just don’t believe in freedom. But at least be honest about it.
Indeed the Ukrainian people have, as Mearsheimer so correctly said, been led down the primrose path to destruction on the promise that the West would come to the rescue.
The “freedom” the US Empire offered was the freedom to be destroyed in order to benefit that Empire.
They could just say “Welcome back brother Slavs, we have 25 years of national reconstruction ahead but hope some of your oil revenues can fund that.”.
Ukraine has not had “agency” in its 1000 year history. They were gutted by the Mongols. Then they were subsumed into the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth in the late middle ages. Then Imperial Russia invaded. At the foundation of Soviet Russia they were simultaneously attacked on three sides by the Soviets, the Poles and Hungary (I think). Then the Nazis rolled right oven them.
Modern Ukraine is an improbable national entity of ridiculous dimension and riven by ethnic divides, 10 middle sized European countries could fit within its borders.
The only non tragic periods for Ukraine were at the height of Imperial Russia when they are valued for their contribution to the Russian Army and then in the Soviet good times 1950 to 1980 when Ukraine was a treasured soviet republic.
The Ukrainians do not know who they are, since 1990 they used democracy to flip-flop between the West and Russia.
Blah blah blah.
I continue to be flabbergasted at the determination of some people to put everything down to a “plan” that the sheeple are falling for but a few great internet warriors have rumbled.
You are wrong, there is no plan.
Clearly you’ve never heard of Brzezinski..
Yes, that much has been apparent for some time now.
If you’ve gotten this far and surprised by the lack of comments, you haven’t yet realized that no one is reading this author because he’s CIA.
That really isn’t a surprise..
Other than that, everything is going perfectly.
I did not read the psy-opps article as it will just leave you more ignorant and less informed than skipping it.
Try ‘The Duran’Alexander Mercouris, Macgregor, and scott Ritter on Rumble or Youtube – get some actual truth.
Sadly the Ukrainians are not fighting for themselves at all. Rather purely for the West and especially the US.
It is so sad to see their country and people being destroyed.
Of course Zelinski’s popularity is going down he drain. He’s lost the war. He now needs to negotiate an appropriate peaceful settlement in which eastern Ukraine (including Odessa) is absorbed into Russia, and western Ukraine remains independent.
I always find there’s only one true side to every argument.