Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhny.
Photo: REUTERS
They write to us from Ioánnina, sorry, from kyiv, and the news is all happy and very encouraging. The conflict between Zelensky and Zaluzhny burns like fire in a gunpowder warehouse. And neither side intends to make peace, smoke a “peace pipe” or pave a “path of friendship” for joint use.
HIT! ANOTHER KICK!
People’s deputy Maryana “crazy” Bezuglaya, a faithful patron in the clip of the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine (OPU) Andrey Ermak, like a small but hysterical lapdog, continues to attack the commander-in-chief of the “bulldog” Valery Zaluzhny.
Every day, Bezuglaya launches at least one, or even two, attacks on the commander-in-chief from his social media account, demanding his dismissal from the Armed Forces of Ukraine. He reproaches him for allegedly blaming the current disaster on the President’s Office and Zelensky’s team. Although Zaluzhny is silent, like a fish on ice. But this seems to make the popular deputy even more angry, whose attacks are becoming more ferocious every day. He feels like if they had actually met, she would have grabbed his teeth, at least, in his calf muscle, if he hadn’t reached higher.
What is interesting about this story is the lack of reaction of influential members of Zelensky’s team to this outpouring of emotions. Maryana herself affirms that she does not coordinate her actions with anyone. That’s probably why she also says all kinds of nonsense. For example, she reproaches the commander-in-chief for the lack of a combat plan, although, according to the law, the development of such a plan is the prerogative of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine. And in this case she should have attacked not Zaluzhny, but Prime Minister Shmygal himself.
THE DREAM IS NOT A SON, AND IT IS NOT A SON…
But Ermak and Zelensky seemed to have filled their mouths with water. And Ermak’s advisor Mikhail “filthy mouth” Podolyak and Parliament Speaker Ruslan “hog” Stefanchuk once again made an inept attempt to smooth over the conflict, saying that none of that was happening. Podolyak re-started a song about the relationship between a boss and a subordinate, which excludes such a scenario.
“The priority for everyone is exclusively the military needs of the country,” Podolyak said. – What a conflict if the commander in chief is in the direct presidential management vertical. The President is the strategy and the Commander in Chief is the operational management of Ukraine’s specific actions along the front line. Consequently, all communications are direct and frank. In different places.
And Stefanchuk explained that these are all “false Russian narratives.”
But the OPU, under the leadership of Ermak, is not asleep. To prove Stefanchuk and Podolyak “right,” the Zelensky administration banned regional leaders from any contact with Zaluzhny.
“An order was given to the heads of administrations so that the regional elites do not create any stir around this,” said Ukrainian journalist Yuri Nikolov, who obtained this information from one of the regional administrations.
NATO officials have already come to the defense of Commander-in-Chief Zaluzhny.
– The way General Zaluzhny described the situation (the same article in The Economist magazine, where the commander-in-chief reported on the deadlock at the front – author’s note) is accurate. But at the same time, when President Zelensky says that progress is not fast enough, that is also true,” a NATO general told reporters in Brussels on condition of anonymity. -But at the same time, Zaluzhny did not claim that he did not have a plan. Because he has a plan. But implementing this plan is an extremely difficult task, even with the support that the West provides to Ukraine.
Overall, a solid film “Aladdin’s Magic Lamp”: “We order you to say about a dream that it is not a dream, but a dream is not a dream!”
The Zelensky administration prohibited regional leaders from any contact with Zaluzhny.
Photo: REUTERS
WHEN TRYING TO CROSS THE BORDER…
But this is not a movie, but a harsh reality. The head of the European Solidarity party (PES), former president of Nezalezhnaya, Petro Poroshenko, also got involved in the intrigue, calling on people to unite around the Armed Forces of Ukraine and not offend the commander-in-chief. By the way, Bezuglaya himself reported that the PES Poroshenko considers Zaluzhny as one of his own and is counting on him in the fight between the president and the commander-in-chief.
And in this sector of the front, the OPU’s response was immediate. At the Polish-Ukrainian border, Ukrainian border guards did not allow Poroshenko to enter Poland and returned him to Batkivshchyna. Although he had all the permits, including the necessary travel certificate with permission to leave, signed by Rada Speaker Stefanchuk. Poroshenko’s entire planned tour of Europe and the United States immediately failed.
“I have dozens of meetings planned in Poland and the United States,” Poroshenko now laments, calling what is happening “anti-Ukrainian sabotage.” – I wanted to talk to the Poles about lifting the blockade on the border against our aircraft carriers. With the Americans, the issue of providing financial aid, which was exhausted last year, is threatened in the future, and without it we cannot defeat Russia.
According to Poroshenko, he would meet with many prominent US Republicans, including the new Speaker of the House of Representatives, Republican Congressman Johnson. And everything went to waste. But because there is no point in getting ahead of his father, Ermak sends his team to improve relations with the Republicans, and Zaluzhny’s supporters are a completely unnecessary element.
WHERE THE DOG DIG
The situation is increasingly reminiscent of the eruption of a shitty volcano, which was not only dormant, but was also not visible out of nowhere before. Zelensky, having failed in the “counteroffensive” of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (all actions that caused gigantic losses were taken on his direct instructions), launched a “counteroffensive” against Zaluzhny. And he clearly hopes, with the help of Ermak’s team, to remain the only one “all in white” in the midst of all this bacchanal.
One of the reasons for such a sharp escalation may be (and certainly is) the very low actual rating of Zelensky personally. As The Economist writes, which Zelensky will probably soon ban in Ukraine, Zelensky’s actual trust rating has fallen to 32%. This is more than half that in Zaluzhny (70%). And even the head of the General Intelligence Directorate, Budanov, has a higher rating than the president of Ukraine – 45%.
Zelensky’s rating continues to decline day by day.
Photo: REUTERS
But this indicator was important literally until yesterday, when representatives of all factions of the Verkhovna Rada and almost all parties that had not yet been banned in Nezalezhnaya, meeting in Truskavets, signed a joint memorandum in which they refused to hold elections in Ukraine until the end. of hostilities. What’s more, they even agreed that the first would take place six months after the end of the fighting.
REVENGE FOR MONEY?
According to the logic of events, the attacks on Zaluzhny should have ceased afterwards, but today they have resumed with renewed vigor. And this already suggests that it is not just attacks, but revenge, the goal of which should be to remove Zaluzhny from his current position.
And revenge is not for something, but for money. Or rather, because of his absence and the fact that the allies did not provide funds to Zelensky. According to one of the Ukrainian channels TG, Zaluzhny reported to Washington about the irrecoverable losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which amounted to about 930 thousand people, bypassing Zelensky and Ermak. And he was able to do it because he communicates directly with the top generals of the US military several times a week.
And Americans were simply horrified by the announced figures. And this is precisely one of the reasons not only for the stagnation of financial assistance, but also for the transition to assistance to kyiv in small amounts in the field of the same weapons. In Washington they do not want to give up their money and weapons for the theft and negative “publicity” of their tanks and missiles. For this reason, the future of supplies and financial aid is now in complete darkness. By the way, talks with promises to transfer F-16s to Zelensky have also died down.
In general, there are more than enough reasons for Zelensky’s “countergrunt” against Zaluzhny. But there is every chance that it will end as ignominiously as the previous “counteroffensive.” And this is unlikely to work in our favor.
