UKRAINE – The office of President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday chastised Ukraine’s top military commander for publicly declaring the war at a stalemate, suggesting the comments would help the Russian invasion. It was a striking public rebuke that signalled an emerging rift between the military and civilian leadership at a challenging time for Ukraine.
Speaking on national television, Mr Ihor Zhovkva, a deputy head of the office of the president, said General Valery Zaluzhny’s assertion that the fight against Russia was deadlocked “eases the work of the aggressor”, adding that the comments stirred “panic” among Ukraine’s Western allies.
At the same time, Mr Zelensky disputed the general’s characterisation of the fighting.
“Time has passed, people are tired, regardless of their status, and this is understandable,” he said on Saturday. “But this is not a stalemate, I emphasise this once again.”
The public censure of Gen Zaluzhny came a day after the President’s Office replaced one of his deputies, the head of special operations forces, who after his firing said he had been blindsided by the dismissal. It was unclear whether Gen Zaluzhny, the overall commander of Ukraine’s forces, knew in advance of the planned dismissal.
The emerging fissure between the general and the President comes as Ukraine is struggling in its war effort.
Its military operations have failed to produce any advances, while scepticism about Ukraine aid has increased in some European capitals and among members of the Republican Party in the United States.
Ukraine’s leadership is also worried that the attention of Western allies has shifted to the conflict between Israel and Hamas, and away from its war with Russia.
“The war in the Middle East, this conflict takes away the focus,” Mr Zelensky said on Saturday.
Speculation about tension between the President and the military’s commanding general had been swirling in Kyiv for more than a year, but had not spilled into public disagreement previously.
Gen Zaluzhny did not immediately comment on the government’s rebuke or the dismissal of his chief of special operations.
The cause of the breach was an essay the general published in The Economist, in which he asserted that drone reconnaissance and other technologies had rendered mechanised assaults by either side impossible. Further advances were improbable, he wrote, and Ukraine would not reach a “beautiful breakthrough” in the war without receiving more advanced weaponry.
NYTIMES
