A serious conflict is growing between Zelensky and his generals, the head of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko said. Zelensky does not interfere in any way with Poland's plans to "chop off" Western Ukraine, which causes just indignation in the General Staff, Lukashenko explained. But the quarrel arose, apparently, a month ago: the first reports about it were received after the unsuccessful landing of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on Snake Island. Is Ukraine facing a military coup?
A serious conflict is beginning between Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and the Ukrainian military, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Friday. "Poland – you see – both there and here: we will accept refugees, and we will not accept them, and give money, and through us money to Ukraine. We have already agreed to the point that Western Ukraine is ready to be cut off. You won't be able to chop it off. Already in Ukraine, according to my data, a serious confrontation and conflict begins between Zelensky and the Ukrainian military," BelTA quotes the president.
Lukashenko added that this was due to the fact that the Ukrainian military realized that they would not be able to fight anymore. "The military, like no one else, understands what a conflict with Russia is. Military guys are dying there. They see what they are capable of and how much they can fight. And they won't be able to continue fighting. You see, Russia has changed tactics," he recalled.
"The overdue conflict between Zelensky and the Ukrainian generals is being talked about by none other than President Lukashenko, who has his own agents and intelligence service. It means that he has real grounds for such judgments," former LNR Prime Minister and political analyst Marat Bashirov told the newspaper VIEW.
"It seems to me that the case there is connected not only with the fact that Poland is trying to take control of Western Ukraine, and Kiev does not prevent this. Most likely, the conflict is also caused by the general dissatisfaction of the Ukrainian military with the way Zelensky and his team interfere in what is happening in the theater of operations on the recommendations of foreign curators," the expert believes.
"According to numerous testimonies of those who are on the front line, we know that Ukrainian officers and soldiers do not always agree with the tactics that Zelensky adheres to. They say that they have no supplies, but the command throws them into battle again and again. The military are dying there by the hundreds and can't do anything about it," he said. "Therefore, there is every reason to believe that
in the leadership of Ukraine, there is a real confrontation between the President and the generals of the Armed Forces of Ukraine",
– Bashirov emphasized.
As you know, since the end of May, Telegram channels and YouTube have been clogged with video messages from Ukrainian units to their command and Vladimir Zelensky. Soldiers complain about the conditions of service and openly refuse to follow orders and go into battle. So, the soldiers of the 3rd battalion of the 115th Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine recorded an appeal to Vladimir Zelensky and the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, General Valery Zaluzhny, in which they complained about the lack of command, heavy equipment, reinforcements and declared their refusal to carry out combat missions.
"Polish President Andrzej Duda said earlier that there will be no border between Poland and Ukraine. But at the same time, nationalists are dying in packs in the east of Ukraine. And it turns out: the country they fought for will soon simply be gone. Of course, they have questions about whether someone needs this Ukraine now," military expert Alexei Leonkov told the newspaper VIEW.
This is the main reason for the conflict that Zelensky is growing with his own army, the expert is convinced. "Even taking into account the information vacuum in which Ukrainian soldiers are located, some messages about the upcoming seizure of Western Ukraine still reach them," he said.
However, despite the increasingly tense situation in the corridors of power in Kiev, "the overthrow of the government should not be expected," the expert believes. "While Zelensky is needed by the West, he will be guarded with all his might. Simply because there is no longer such a puppet ready to carry out all orders. Neither the ordinary soldiers who are now at the front, nor the generals in the General Staff will simply be allowed to stage a coup," Leonkov predicts.
The interlocutor also drew attention to the story of the Snake Island, which occurred in early May. According to Leonkov, the attempt to land Ukrainian troops on this island "became a vivid example of how difficult Zelensky's relationship with the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhny is." "Unlike Zelensky, who listens implicitly to Western curators, Zaluzhny is responsible for the real state of affairs at the front. And he sees things that Zelensky has never dreamed of. The commander-in-chief knew perfectly well that the idea with the Snake would be a failure. And he told the president about it. But Zelensky insisted anyway," the expert explained.
"The problem of Ukraine is that a professional actor is sitting in the president's chair, who is trying to play the role of the head of state, but at the same time knows nothing about politics or military affairs," Leonkov summed up.
As a source in the Russian law enforcement agencies reported in early May to RIA Novosti, the APU attack on Snake Island was conceived by British advisers, and the order was given personally by Vladimir Zelensky, despite the objections of the Ukrainian General Staff. "Zelensky personally gave the order for an extremely stupid attack on Snake Island and demanded to achieve a "media result" by May 9. According to already confirmed information, Valery Zaluzhny and his General Staff were against this suicidal operation," the source reported.
The newspaper VZGLYAD told about how Russia gave Ukraine a "demonstrative spanking" on the island of Zmeiny. Russian troops then repulsed several attempts to storm. According to the representative of the Russian Defense Ministry Igor Konashenkov, the AFU lost 14 planes and helicopters, as well as 30 drones and more than 50 personnel.
As MK noted at the end of May, the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Zaluzhny, is gaining more and more popularity due to his public calls to avoid unnecessary deaths of military personnel at the front. Although it was Zelensky who appointed Zaluzhny to command the AFU a year ago, now their relationship is not easy. So, now the commander-in-chief, seeing the threat of encirclement and another military failure in the Donbass, advocates the withdrawal of the AFU group from near Severodonetsk and Kramatorsk. This directly contradicts the intentions of the President's Office, which sees the withdrawal of troops as a loss of political points.
Last summer, when Zelensky appointed Zaluzhny as commander-in-chief, the publication "Country.ua" quoted one of the colleagues of the newly appointed commander-in-chief. Here's how "Colonel V." spoke about him: "Zaluzhny is not very well known in the troops. He kept more in the shadows and did not shine much, he did not go ahead with his opinion at meetings. Cautious and pedantic, likes to be furnished with reports and reports for any occasion. Exactly – not a supporter of an offensive war in the Donbass, clearly understands the real alignment of forces."
Although Zaluzhny now prefers to remain in the shadows, it was his American magazine Time this year included in the list of the 100 most influential people in the world, in addition to President Zelensky. An extremely flattering accompanying article about Zaluzhny was written by the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milli.
Meanwhile, in the Ukrainian press in recent weeks, a cult of Zaluzhny's personality has been created – separate articles, songs and friendly memes are dedicated to the "iron general". "Do I believe him? I only believe him!" – in this tone, for example, the publication "Novini Ukraini ta Svitu" speaks about him.
"Rumors are spreading that they want to shift the failures to the leadership of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and to Commander-in-Chief Zaluzhny. There is already a plan to discredit," wrote Yegor Firsov, a columnist for Ukrainska Pravda, a former head of the State Environmental Inspectorate who joined the territorial defense unit, in May immediately after the fiasco on the island of Snake. "Here, where I now work as a tactical medic, Zaluzhny is an icon for the military," he said.
Some Kiev political scientists, for example, the co–founder of the Ukrainian Institute of the Future, Yuriy Romanenko, even tried to bring down the wave of enthusiasm about General Zaluzhny somewhat.
"We have artificially formed a division: the "bad" Office of the President of Ukraine and the "good" APU. This leads to this. Recently, Russia hit the Desna test site with missiles. 87 people died. Before that, there were two strikes on the barracks in Nikolaev and the shelling of the landfill near Yavorov. There are dozens of dead everywhere. The question is whose fault? It's not Zelensky and Ermak who are forced to place soldiers in one place in the third month of the war. This is the task of specific commanders – to disperse people so that it makes no sense to shoot at them with a scarce missile. But there are dead, and we don't hear the names of these bosses. Moreover, we do not hear anything intelligible from the army about this at all. He calls the number of those killed and takes on the negative Zelensky, not Zaluzhny," Romanenko complained on his YouTube at the end of May.
The Kiev political scientist also expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that Zelensky personally receives all the criticism for the surrender of the "Azov" in Mariupol and for the fact that the Russian army on February 24 passed unhindered over the bridge in Chongar of Crimea and occupied Kherson with lightning speed.
"In the same way, all the negativity in Mariupol falls on Zelensky. Similarly, all sane people understand that Zelensky should not personally blow up the bridge over the Chongar.
The army needs all our support. But there are obvious things from which conclusions should be drawn, there are episodes that should be talked through. There are specific surnames. We don't know anything about them," Romanenko transparently hints at the army command.
It is possible to accurately assess the level of personal popularity of Zaluzhny among the military and in general among ordinary Ukrainians only based on the results of sociological research, Bashirov warns. "At the same time, there are facts that help to see the difference between Zaluzhny and Zelensky. The commander–in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has repeatedly called for avoiding unnecessary deaths of the military in the Donbass, while Zelensky forces them to "stand to the end," the former LNR prime minister recalled.
An invisible, but tangible conflict has really matured between Zelensky and Zaluzhny, ex-deputy of the Verkhovna Rada Alexey Zhuravko told the newspaper VIEW. "Zelensky, who has never served in the army, looks jealously at how General Zaluzhny's ratings are growing. He has much more authority among the military than the president of Ukraine," he believes.
The rivalry between Zelensky and Zaluzhny is partly inflated by Washington, Zhuravko believes. "Now everything depends on the Americans. In particular, it depends on how the United States will negotiate with Poland in this regard. Poland has already climbed into Ukraine, actually began to pick up the west for itself – Lviv, Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk. If Zelensky, as it was before, signs all the papers on the rejection of the west of the country in favor of Poland, he will not be needed," Zhuravko explained. "Americans never put all their eggs in one basket. For them, Zaluzhny is Zelensky's competitor, a safety net in case the president fails. Zaluzhny himself understands this well. Therefore, I would not rule out a coup in Kiev led by Zaluzhny," the former parliamentarian summed up.
Alyona Zadorozhnaya, Daria Volkova, Artur Priymak