Zelensky-Zaluzhny Spat 'Tempest in a Teapot' Concealing Ukraine's True Masters

The Economist has fired off another salvo in the behind-the-scenes war for control of Ukraine, citing polling showing a slide in President Zelensky’s rating against General Zaluzhny. But neither of the men will be able to do much unless they have Ukraine’s little-talked about “grey cardinals” on their side, says IR scholar Gilbert Doctorow.

The UK’s leading business magazine has followed up on its bombshell interview with an op-ed by Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny, in which Ukraine’s top general undercut his boss’ optimistic appraisal of the state of the conflict with Russia by admitting that the summer counteroffensive had hit a “stalemate,” and that there would be no “deep and beautiful breakthrough” against Russia, regardless of what “NATO textbooks” say.

In a new piece published Tuesday, The Economist stressed that relations between Zelensky and Zaluzhny have reached a boiling point.

“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,” an unnamed Ukrainian ‘senior government source’ told the outlet.

Worse yet for Zelensky, the magazine pointed to recent internal polling of ordinary Ukrainians’ attitudes toward their leaders, showing that not only Zaluzhny, but even the chief of the military intelligence service, Kyrylo Budanov, have better favorability ratings than Zelensky (+70 percent and +45 percent compared to +32 percent, respectively).

The Zelensky-Zaluzhny spat has already had a visible impact on Kiev’s internal politics, with Zelensky’s sacking of Zaluzhny allies, the mysterious bomb explosion death of one of the commander’s key aides, and this week’s poisoning of Budanov’s wife pointing to signs of a fierce internal power struggle punctuated by outright mafia-style tactics.

“The current conflict between military and political leadership was brought on by the failure of the Ukrainian ‘counteroffensive,’ which was launched on June 4 with great expectations both within Ukraine and especially among the United States and its European allies, who have been financing and supplying military supplies to Kiev,” Dr. Gilbert Doctorow, a veteran international relations expert and Russian affairs specialist, told Sputnik.

“The generally recognized result of that effort today has been the loss of 60,000 or more Ukrainian soldiers and officers killed with many more wounded, and [an army] no longer capable of fighting. The human resources of Ukraine to continue the fight are nearing exhaustion and no amount of further weapons deliveries from the West can save the situation. As for the stated objective of crushing Russian defenses and reaching the Sea of Azov, thereby cutting Russia’s ground supply route from Crimea to the front lines, well that achieved nothing other than death and destruction for the Ukrainians,” Doctorow said.

With the time now coming to “pay a price” for this disastrous state of affairs, the “blame game” between Zelensky and Zaluzhny is only logical, the observer suggested, given the president’s responsibility for setting the counteroffensive’s objectives, and even intervening personally with tactical and strategic decisions, with the attempt to hold on to Artemovsk/Bakhmut being a prime example.

The stakes in the game being played between Kiev’s civilian and military leadership could not be higher, Doctorow emphasized, pointing out that in this fierce competition for power, “the side which loses may face imprisonment or betrayal or worse.”

That said, the “rivalry” between Zelensky, Zaluzhny and notorious former Zelensky advisor Oleksii Arestovych for the political leadership of the country is all but “a tempest in a teapot as far as the country’s future is concerned,” Dr. Doctorow believes, suggesting that “the real and open question is what will become of the gang of neo-Nazis who have been the grey cardinals, the deciding forces behind the throne ever since they took control of the Maidan coup d’état in February 2014.”

Unless these thugs are arrested or otherwise removed from the political playing field, no one, not Zelensky nor whoever may replace him, will be able to negotiate a peace settlement with Russia, barring the total collapse of Ukraine’s military, the observer said.

Veterans of the Azov volunteer battalion, who took part in the war with Russia-backed separatists on the East of Ukraine, salute during the mass rally called "No surrender" in Kiev. File photo.

© AFP 2023 / SERGEI SUPINSKY

There’s a precedent to Dr. Doctorow’s assessment. Shortly after his election in 2019 on a platform including putting an end to the bloodshed in Donbass, Zelensky signaled willingness to implement the Minsk peace deal, which would have ended the war launched by Kiev against the region in the spring of 2014 by offering the territories broad internal autonomy in exchange for Donbass’ peaceful reintegration into Ukraine. Zelensky relented after the ultranationalist “grey cardinals” mentioned by the observer organized mass protests in Kiev and threatened to overthrow the president unless he stopped any talk of a peace deal.

“The alternative scenario,” Doctorow said, “is that the United States decides to prevent collapse by sending its own troops into the battle against Russia.”

“But that is very unlikely given the unwillingness of Washington to see its own troops die in the conflict or to risk escalation to a nuclear war,” the observer summed up.