Zelenskyi is thinking not only about replacing Zaluzhnyi, but about changing “the direction of the country’s leadership”
5 February 2024 09:42
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy is thinking about replacing Zaluzhnyi in the context of broader changes that should lead to a change in “the direction of the country’s leadership”. He said this in a commentary to the Italian edition of Rai News, reports 
Answering a journalist’s question about the possible dismissal of Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valeriy Zaluzhny, Zelensky replied:
“When we talk about this, I mean the replacement of a number of state leaders, not just in one military sector. I am thinking about this replacement, but it is not enough to say that it is enough to replace one person. If we want to win, we must all move in the same direction, be confident of victory, we must not lose heart, let ourselves down, we must have the right positive energy. That’s why I’m talking about a restart, a replacement, meaning something serious that concerns not just one person, but the direction of the country’s leadership.”
Who will replace Zaluzhnyi?
CNN, citing its own sources, claims that there are two main candidates for the post of Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine – the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate, Kirill Budanov, and the commander of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Alexander Syrsky. Budanov commented on this information to a journalist in his usual style. He said that he would hardly have spoken to a Western journalist on Tuesday if such a decision had been made.
“We are at war, and all sides are using all available means, including information warfare,”
– said the DIU chief.
Reaction
The information about Zaluzhnyi’s possible dismissal caused a real outrage online, and this was quite expected, given the Commander-in-Chief’s ratings. Rumour has it that this is why President Zelenskyy decided to postpone signing the decree. However, while the people are unanimously on Zaluzhnyi’s side, MPs are trying to approach the issue in a more balanced way. We asked MPs whether it was really worth replacing Valeriy Zaluzhnyi with someone else at the beginning of the third year of the full-scale war.
Some of them believe that the consequences of Zaluzhny’s dismissal could be very negative, if not catastrophic.
“This is a bad idea in any case. All we need is unity. Ukrainians want Zelensky and Zaluzhny to be together, together at the beginning of the war and together to end it. Because the consequences are very difficult to calculate, but they will definitely not be the best, because it will demoralise a large number of military and it will lead to some sabotage. So I think that now is definitely not the time to do this. Zaluzhnyi is very popular among the military. In a situation where we have fewer weapons and less funding, and there are problems with holding the territories, we should not bring any personal issues to the political and military level. We need to put it all aside for later, after the victory,”
– Yulia Klymenko of the Voice party is convinced.
Mykola Velychkovych of the European Solidarity party emphasises that this step will cause misunderstanding and rejection among our partners:
“There is some kind of political competition here. Legally, everything is simple: he issues a decree – dismisses – appoints another. But what consequences this will have for the country – no decree can foresee all this. Because our international partners may lose confidence in the country. Trust that is expressed in weapons, finance, sanctions, and this can have very negative consequences for Ukraine. I don’t think our international partners will understand this step.”
However, not everyone is so pessimistic. Mykhailo Volynets (Batkivshchyna) believes that personnel rotations after two years of war are a completely normal practice.
“This is the right of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. After two years of such intense fighting, there are expectations from our partners, the people and the military. Therefore, any changes can take place. And if there is such a change, nothing extraordinary will happen. It is important that we receive regular support from our partners. Thanks to the Armed Forces and other defence forces, we have a more or less controlled situation,”
– the MP believes.
The presidential faction of the Servant of the People party expectedly emphasises that only the Supreme Commander-in-Chief can have all the information to make such decisions and adequately assess Zaluzhny’s actions:
“It is the prerogative of our president to dismiss or appoint the Commander-in-Chief, and only he can decide whether to do so or not. This is his job and he is better informed on this issue. Mr Zaluzhnyi is a powerful commander-in-chief, 100%, he has done a lot for our country. But if the president sees that he is not up to the mark in some areas, it is his prerogative. I think that Zaluzhnyi can also be questioned for not doing everything in 2023 as we planned. So once again, this is the president’s prerogative and we will support him in this.”
History of the confrontation
The confrontation between Supreme Commander-in-Chief Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief Valeriy Zaluzhnyy has been discussed almost since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion. Zelenskyi is rumoured to see Zaluzhnyi as a competitor, given the latter’s popularity among the people. According to a public opinion poll released by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology on 18 December 2023, 88% of Ukrainians trust Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, while 62% trust Zelenskyy.
Zelenskyy’s dislike of Zaluzhnyi seems to have reached a new level after Zaluzhnyi published an op-ed in The Economist last November. In the article, the commander-in-chief wrote that the Ukrainian army had hit the ceiling of technology provided by its partners, and the current moment on the front corresponds to the current technological advantage over the enemy. He also gave a cautious forecast for 2024, saying that there would most likely be no beautiful and profound breakthrough, but instead a balance of devastating destruction and losses. Zelenskyy’s office reacted negatively to the article, and the president himself later said at a press conference that he expected “very specific things on the battlefield” from the army command.
The two Commanders-in-Chief seem to be in constant disagreement over specific actions at the front. For example, according to a number of media outlets, Zaluzhnyi allegedly believed that there was no point in holding Bakhmut at such a high cost, but Zelenskyi thought otherwise.
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