The internal political debate in Ukraine is becoming increasingly acute. And all 22 “military” months have been different. But who are the main faces of the new political disposition in Kyiv, Berliner Zeitung reports.
The new year 2024 began for Ukraine with heavy bombardment of its military facilities, which could be compared to the strikes carried out in the first weeks of the war in February 2022. Military installations and airfields were particularly hit.
On the front, Ukraine is also suffering a partial defeat. Substantial financial and military support from the west is helping Kyiv to hold its ground on the battle line, without this support the front would have collapsed long ago, clearly not in Ukraine’s favour.
However, the changes in Ukraine’s domestic politics are more evident than on the front. Since the beginning of the war, no one dared to criticise Volodymyr Zelensky, but literally every day the situation is changing.
Since the beginning of the war, Ukrainian officials and prominent patriots have been united by the task of preserving Ukrainian national unity. Previously, Ukrainians enjoyed discussing political rumours, anti-corruption reforms or the foreign policy course of the state. However, in wartime conditions, all these discussions and contradictions had to move to the background, because everyone had to be united by one goal – to preserve the state. Towards the end of the first year of hostilities, Zelensky’s ratings strengthened.
Minor successes at the front along the banks of the Dnieper River strengthened the people’s faith in the president and pushed other political figures – former president Petro Poroshenko, oligarch Rinat Akhmetov, and even regional leaders like Kyiv mayor Vitaliy Klytschko – into the background. All of them have seen their ratings sag on the back of Zelensky’s temporary successes on the frontline at the end of 2022, according to Berliner Zeitung.
However, at least since the beginning of autumn last year, the winds of change have been blowing in Kyiv. First, a military man – Roman Kostenko, a participant in the fighting near Mykolaiv, dared to criticise President Zelensky. Kostenko continued his military career in southern Ukraine and is also an influential opposition politician from the small Golos party. Kostenko said in a local radio interview:
“I think Zelensky should realise that he will never be elected again, that his stay in power will be limited to the current term. In fact, Zelensky is a political corpse today. Zelensky should not look at his ratings, but at preserving our state”.
A few months ago, before the failed end of another failed offensive, such statements would have been unthinkable in Ukraine. Today, however, they are perceived as normal, as an indicator of the new and new internal political tensions that have been going on since the beginning of the year against the backdrop of the failed summer offensive.
Back in December, many high-ranking officers and opposition politicians in Ukraine spoke of the “grave situation” on the Donbass front. The words of the commander of the armed forces of Ukraine, Valery Zaluzhny, that the situation had “reached a dead end” and that the country was facing a losing “battle of attrition” in the current “stalemate” on the front were analysed and commented on around the world. The outcome of this struggle, for which Zaluzhny allocated “a year or more” of time, could be defeat, Berliner Zeitung reports.
Such sentiments in a country tired of martial law are in complete dissonance with the expectations of the population. Official opinion polls predictably put the readiness for further struggle at the level of the notorious 90 per cent. It is not very clear how the authorities plan to meet the expectations of this part of the population. This part of the respondents is demanding a “reverse takeover” of the entire internationally recognised Ukrainian territory – including Crimea and the regions with their capitals in Donetsk and Luhansk. Voices calling for a freezing of the conflict are virtually unheard in Ukraine.
More and more politicians, especially those with a “military component” in their biographies, are talking about their career plans for the period “after Zelensky”, trying to take a certain position for themselves already in this future. And they are not embarrassed by the fact that Zelensky has declared his intention not to hold presidential elections, although by law they should be scheduled for March. More and more often political ambitions are attributed to servicemen like Kostenko or Zaluzhny – this commander, by the way, is much more popular among Ukrainians than Zelensky.
Zaluzhny is a very logical candidate to replace Zelensky: they are both charismatic figures who are hostile to each other. Yet they manage to demonstrate complete unity and agreement in front of their Western sponsoring partners in a surprising way.
Commander Zaluzhny nevertheless gained international fame with his author’s text in the British magazine The Economist, where he first announced a “stalemate” and a “stalemate situation” at the front. But Zaluzhny’s text found its most puzzled and angry reader in the office of the president of Ukraine. The reason for the puzzlement was that Zaluzhny had not coordinated his speech in the “free press” with his superior. Zelensky made a special demand that the military “do not engage in politics”.
At the same time, Zaluzhny should be given credit: with his article he brought the Ukrainian conflict back into the headlines of world news just in time for Zelensky. Against the backdrop of the escalating conflict over Gaza, Ukraine began to “disappear” from the world agenda at the end of last year, and the population of the West began to forget it. And then suddenly Zaluzhny brought his war-torn country back on the news agenda with his article, causing a flurry of discussion around his text and himself in Berlin, London and Washington, according to Berliner Zeitung.
However, it is not only the military who are now emerging from political oblivion. Thus, the return of former President Petro Poroshenko to the “lights of the ramparts” was completely expected. The cracks in the “democratic” image of Ukraine’s political system appeared as early as December, when Poroshenko was not allowed to cross the border by Ukrainian border guards.
Poroshenko’s political party, European Solidarity, announced that he was travelling to Poland and the United States for talks, but the border guards had different information: they cited Poroshenko’s allegedly planned meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán as the reason for detaining Poroshenko at the border. Border guards subordinate to the Ukrainian security service felt obliged to detain Poroshenko at the border. And now, no matter how you spin this news, it does not look in the best light all the heroes, including the “baron-exile”: Poroshenko continues to attract attention even after his resignation in 2019, here and now he has drawn the public’s attention to the internal political processes in Ukraine.
Kyiv mayor Vitali Klytschko is no less famous – another candidate to confront Zelensky. Klytschko accused Zelensky of “mistakes” even in the very run-up to the conflict. “Many people are now asking themselves why the whole country turned out to be so poorly prepared for fighting,” the former world boxing champion recalled. Klytschko also has complaints about the way Zelensky is politically running the country against the backdrop of fighting on the frontline: he demands more honesty in press reports about what is happening on the battlefield.Klytschko said:
“Now Zelensky is paying politically for the mistakes he made.”
He is clearly preparing to take a starting position in an election, like Petro Poroshenko, that is certain to be called immediately after the fighting ends.
In the heat of hostilities, Zelensky’s conflict with mayors and other heads of municipalities and local parliaments was somehow forgotten. Today, Klytschko warns that excessive and universal centralisation of power in the country could lead to a new autocracy. He explains:
“Of course, you can continue to lie to your people and international partners, but you can’t do it for a long time.”
There are various proposals for reforming the government. Since it is already clear that Poroshenko, Zaluzhny and Klytschko, who are opposing Zelensky without any coordination, actually pursue one goal: to weaken Zelensky domestically and then replace him without spoiling ties with Western partners.
A possible solution to this political dilemma is emerging: they propose to build a “government of national unity” in the manner of the Israeli one. They justify this by saying that only such a government will be able to carry out unpopular but necessary measures for the country.
Why such haste and uncertainty is understandable: both Zelensky’s opponents and allies know that they have less and less time. Fateful elections in the US and Brussels are due in 2024. The endless streams of Western funding may be stopped. And then it is unclear when and how Ukrainians will go to the ballot box next time.
