Russia has put Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on its wanted list, Russian state media reported Saturday, citing the interior ministry’s database.
As of Saturday afternoon, both Zelenskyy and his predecessor, Petro Poroshenko, featured on the ministry’s list of people wanted on unspecified criminal charges. The commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, Gen. Oleksandr Pavlyuk, was also on the list.
Russian officials did not immediately clarify the allegations against any of the men. Mediazona, an independent Russian news outlet, claimed Saturday that both Zelenskyy and Poroshenko had been listed since at least late February.
In an online statement published that same day, Ukraine’s foreign ministry dismissed the reports of Zelenskyy’s inclusion as evidence of “the desperation of the Russian state machine and propaganda.”
Russia’s wanted list also includes scores of officials and lawmakers from Ukraine and NATO countries. Among them is Kaja Kallas, the prime minister of NATO and EU member Estonia, who has fiercely advocated for increased military aid to Kyiv and stronger sanctions against Moscow.
Russian officials in February said that Kallas is wanted because of Tallinn’s efforts to remove Soviet-era monuments to Red Army soldiers in the Baltic nation, in a belated purge of what many consider symbols of past oppression.
Fellow NATO members Latvia, Lithuania and Poland have also pulled down monuments that are widely seen as an unwanted legacy of the Soviet occupation of those countries.
Russia has laws criminalizing the “rehabilitation of Nazism” that include punishing the “desecration” of war memorials.
Also on Russia’s list are cabinet ministers from Estonia and Lithuania, as well as the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor who last year prepared a warrant for President Vladimir Putin on war crimes charges. Moscow has also charged the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, with what it deems “terrorist” activities, including Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian infrastructure.
The Kremlin has repeatedly sought to link Ukraine’s leaders to Nazism, even though the country has a democratically elected Jewish president who lost relatives in the Holocaust, and despite the aim of many Ukrainians to strengthen the country’s democracy, reduce corruption and move closer to the West.
Moscow named “de-Nazification, de-militarization and a neutral status” of Ukraine as the key goals of what it insists on calling a “special military operation” against its southern neighbor. The claim of “de-Nazification” refers to Russia’s false assertions that Ukraine’s government is heavily influenced by radical nationalist and neo-Nazi groups – an allegation derided by Kyiv and its Western allies.
The Holocaust, World War II and Nazism have been important tools for Putin in his bid to legitimize Russia’s war in Ukraine. World War II, in which the Soviet Union lost an estimated 27 million people, is a linchpin of Russia’s national identity, and officials bristle at any questioning of the USSR’s role.
Some historians say this has been coupled with an attempt by Russia to retool certain historical truths from the war. They say Russia has tried to magnify the Soviet role in defeating the Nazis while playing down any collaboration by Soviet citizens in the persecution of Jews, along with allegations of crimes by Red Army soldiers against civilians in Eastern Europe.
Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
KYIV — Ukraine’s long-range Beaver drones seem to be making successful kamikaze strikes in the heart of Moscow, but Serhiy Prytula is coy about how much he knows.
“We are not sure whether we are involved in this,” he says with a charming but inscrutable smile, when asked about these mysterious new weapons.
Prytula rose to fame — just like President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — as an actor, TV star and comedian, but is now best known for his contribution to the war, running a foundation that acquires components, helps support domestic arms production and supplies front-line forces. Tracking down parts for drones has proved to be one of his fortes.
Whether or not Prytula played any role in finding parts for the Beaver, it has now joined the ranks of other homegrown creations such as the Shark, Leleka and Valkyrie.
From the outside, his foundation looks like any other nondescript five-story apartment block in the quiet side streets of Kyiv. Inside, it is a chaotic human hive of volunteers, preparing packages and dispatching deliveries to soldiers on the front. On August 9, the team packed 75 drones for military units. That’s barely a drop in the ocean, given the needs of Ukraine’s forces across a 1,000-kilometer front, but every extra eye in the sky can help save dozens of lives.
The crowd of young, energetic volunteers at Prytula’s headquarters epitomizes an important dimension of the war: Ukrainians are increasingly taking matters into their own hands when it comes to weapons supply. With the defense ministry and the traditional state arms sector widely criticized for inefficiency and tarnished by corruption scandals over past years, the country is now witnessing an explosion of private enterprise to deliver kit to the front lines and to ramp up domestic production in the most hazardous of conditions. With arms-makers being prime targets for Russian cruise missiles, factories are spreading their manufacturing over numerous secret locations.
This sense that Ukrainians need to take the initiative at home both by scouring the global arms bazaar for hi-tech gizmos and by making more of their own heavy armor and shells is only amplified by the looming threat of a return to the White House by Donald Trump, who argues that America should not be “sending very much” to Ukraine and that Kyiv should sue for peace with the invader. Other Republican candidates have only heightened Ukrainians’ fears that the next U.S. president could sell out their young democracy to the Kremlin.
In addition to the aerial drones, there have been other homegrown success stories — Ukrainian-made armored vehicles are on the front lines beside U.S. Bradleys and locally made maritime drones have hit Russian ships in the Black Sea.
Not that anyone reckons going it alone is an option. Ukraine cannot even begin to match the vast military expenditure of Russia — Kyiv is expected to spend €24 billion on defense over 2023, while Russia is probably splurging well over €80 billion — so foreign assistance will always prove vital to keeping Ukraine in the fight.
But that’s no reason to sit idly by. Almost an entire country has mobilized for national defense, and there are many ways in which entrepreneurial private suppliers are now proving nimbler than state behemoths and bureaucrats in getting soldiers what they need.
When it came to the key question — on every Ukrainian’s mind — of continued Western support, Prytula stressed the efforts that Ukrainians were making to defend themselves made it less likely that outside aid would diminish. “I am convinced that they will keep supplying us with weapons because the world sees the war efforts of Ukrainian society.”
Beaver blitz
The back story of the Beaver is a closely guarded secret.
Last year, Ukrainian blogger and volunteer Ihor Lachenkov announced he was aiming to collect 20 million hryvnia (about €500,000) to produce and buy five Beaver drones for military intelligence, and later posted pictures of himself hugging one. Since then drones that looked like Beavers have hammered Russian oil depots and other military targets deep inside Russian territory and even hit Moscow’s business district. Officially, Ukraine is saying nothing about where this kit is coming from, and men such as Lachenkov and Prytula provide a useful smokescreen.
The country is now witnessing an explosion of private enterprise to deliver kit to the front lines | Sergey Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images
Prytula in late July also showed off grinning pictures of himself walking past three Beaver drones on a landing strip, quipping ironically: “We have no idea what can fly to Moscow.”
Since the full-scale invasion in February 2022, Prytula’s foundation has raised $135 million, which has been used to buy more than 7,000 drones, 1,200 vehicles, over 17,000 communication devices and much more.
When asked about his role in getting the Beaver drones, Prytula diplomatically said a volunteer’s job is to buy what the military needs and hand it over. “But it is not always necessary to talk about it. We honestly always say that we have nothing to do with it. When we see oil bases are exploding somewhere in Russia, or that there are some attacks on military facilities, we are glad that our army has learned to take out the enemy outside the country,” Prytula said.
Indeed, Prytula’s volunteers play a key middleman role in acquiring components more quickly than the state bureaucracy can.
China is a key part of the puzzle as the Ukrainian defense ministry cannot buy Chinese-made civilian drones directly. Shenzhen-based drone maker DJI no longer openly sells to Russia or to Ukraine, so the key trick is to acquire their wares quickly from third countries, or pick up parts and components internationally that can be assembled by Ukrainian technicians. There is a boom in small Ukrainian arms producers, with more than 100 companies active in the field.
“For the Russians, it was always easier to get [the Chinese products] in the never-ending race. So, when I hear Ukrainians managed to snatch up 10,000 components for … drones from Russians, I am happy,” Prytula said, sitting in his office, beside a giant wooden map of Ukraine.
This sense that Ukrainians need to take the initiative at home is only amplified by the looming threat of a return to the White House by Donald Trump, who argues that America should not be “sending very much” to Ukraine and that Kyiv should sue for peace with the invader | Brandon Bell/Getty Images
“The defense ministry also can’t buy [drones] that are not in serial production yet. But we can, and the producers can reinvest the money to increase the number, if soldiers’ feedback from the front was good,” Prytula continued. “So, by donating money people are not only helping the army, but also stimulating domestic military production.”
The game-changing role of drone producers has also made them a target. Over the weekend, Russia attacked a theater in the center of Chernihiv, a city north of Kyiv, where drone producers and volunteers had organized a closed meeting with the help of the local military administration. Most of them managed to escape to shelter but people walking around the theater on the central square did not, with seven killed and 129 injured.
Bringing it all back home
While almost everyone now wants to get involved in the defense business, that wasn’t always the case. Just as Russia was building up its military from 1991 to 2014, Ukraine neglected its own arms factories. In the wild years following the collapse of the Soviet Union, illegal networks smuggled out arms. While the country remained a heavyweight military producer, it focused on export earnings rather than tailoring weapons for Ukraine’s own forsaken troops.
“No one predicted any military conflicts either with Russia or other countries,” Maksym Polyvianyi, acting director of the National Association of Ukrainian Defense Industries, told POLITICO. “In a way, Russia’s 2014 invasion boosted our defense industry. Dozens of defense companies appeared and started the modernization of Ukrainian armory and the army.”
Still, the old scourge of corruption held the country back, even after Russia seized Crimea in 2014. Under the presidency of Petro Poroshenko, the state arms industry was rocked by scandals in which money was siphoned off, even as the country faced open conflict against Russia in the east.
Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022 forced another change, however, accelerating diversification from the state industrial complex. “As of 2022, Ukrainian armed forces buy up to 70 percent of defense products from private military companies,” Polyvianyi said.
Under the presidency of Petro Poroshenko, the state arms industry was rocked by scandals in which money was siphoned off, even as the country faced open conflict against Russia in the east | Chris McGrath/Getty Images
With the start of the full-scale invasion, Ukraine’s defense producers became primary targets for Russian missiles. Many were bombed. But others managed to relocate to western Ukraine and spread out production.
“You have to be creative to survive nowadays. Two months after the start of the invasion, we resumed our work,” Vladislav Belbas, director general of Ukrainian Armor, told POLITICO. Since 2018, Ukrainian Armor produced the Varta and Novator armored vehicles, as well as 60mm, 82mm, and 120 mm-caliber mortars for the army. “We recently restarted production even though we’ve lost an important components contractor. It is now located on the territory controlled by Russia.”
Secrecy is also crucial. “We do everything to protect our staff, hide information about our production whereabouts. We move and test equipment at night, when it is more difficult to track us. We try not to concentrate equipment in one place,” Belbas said.
Oleksandr Kamyshin, Ukraine’s strategic industries minister, stressed output was rising dramatically but that it was inconceivable to match Russia without major foreign support. “In seven months of 2023, we made 10 times more artillery and mortar ammo than in the entire 2022. But we are still very far from what we need,” he told POLITICO. “Today we have a war of such a scale that the entire capacity of the free world is not enough to support our consumption. We definitely cannot do this without help.”
Ministry malaise
The defense ministry — the main supplier of weapons, food, uniforms and other necessities — is struggling to shake off a reputation for graft and inefficiency.
In a high-profile profiteering scandal earlier this year, it transpired the ministry had paid absurdly inflated prices for soldiers’ rations to a contractor. The ministry denies violations, but keeps hiding behind military secrecy.
Oleksandr Kamyshin, Ukraine’s strategic industries minister, stressed output was rising dramatically but that it was inconceivable to match Russia without major foreign support | Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images
Other more recent scandals and procurement hiccups have focused on the ministry’s failure to secure delivery of everything it paid for. In private, Ukrainian officials admit the defense ministry is not up to scratch in supplying the army, and some Ukrainian lawmakers openly criticize the minister, Oleksii Reznikov, over his record on procurement.
The Ukrainian government has found alternative ways to cover some of the needs of the Ukrainian army, with the digital transformation ministry engaging in drone supplies, using state donations platform UNITED 24, and liberalizing customs and production rules for drones in Ukraine.
“President Zelenskyy took domestic defense production under personal control,” Kamyshin said.
Prytula, the founder of the foundation, said it was hard to judge the defense ministry during war. “They are quite successful when it comes to accumulating help in the international arena, but have some troubles at home. I think the defense ministry is doing what it can in terms of its responsibility. But with such a war it is never enough,” he said.
But Polyvianyi noted that’s where volunteers were coming into their own as parallel supply lines, filling the gaps left by the ministry. “The task of the state today is to provide heavy equipment. Without help, the state cannot provide all the needs of each army unit. Charitable foundations work in close connection with the ministry of defense and other structures.”
That’s a partnership in which Prytula is one of the most important players. But he is among the first to admit that all of Ukraine’s Herculean efforts at home will amount to nothing without the support of the international coalition.
“So it is hard to imagine we can win if we’re left on our own. As in the war of two formerly Soviet armies, the one with more people and weapons will win. Only better technology can help change the situation,” Prytula said. “It will be very difficult for us to fight alone with such a huge monster. But the civilized world has two options: to help us restore our 1991 borders, or to throw away all claims of shared values and just watch us bleed.”
If Russian President Vladimir Putin hopes a quick reshuffle of generals can revive the fortunes of his faltering campaign in Ukraine and quell bitter turf wars among his commanders, he’s likely to be disappointed.
After only three months as overall commander of Russia’s war, General Sergei Surovikin has been replaced by his boss, Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, the country’s most senior soldier. Colonel General Alexander Lapin was promoted to chief of the general staff of the ground forces.
Both Western security analysts and pro-war Russian military veterans, however, are skeptical this game of musical chairs will trigger any game-changing tactics or help restore momentum to the Russian campaign. Surovikin will continue as Gerasimov’s battlefield deputy.
They see the shake-up as largely political, and a sign of infighting in the Kremlin, with the defense ministry trying to reassert control of the management of the war and to curb the growing influence of paramilitary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the mercenary Wagner Group.
Prigozhin is seeking to seize the limelight by claiming to have made breakthroughs with a massive wave attacks in the east of Ukraine, using so-called penal battalions comprised largely of former prison inmates to deliver a rare Russian victory. This week, for example, Prigozhin claimed Wagner mercenaries had overrun the salt-mining town of Soledar. Ukraine retorts that fighting is still ongoing and that Prigozhin’s tactics are insane because of the huge casualties that he is willing to accept for negligible strategic gains.
In a sign of the personality politics that seem to be looming larger in the splintered Russian military, Prigozhin is also keen to depict himself as a fighter in helmet and flak jacket with his troops on the battle fronts.
The pro-war ultranationalist camp of Prigozhin and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has long been pushing for a restructuring of the top echelons of the command.
It looks, though, like Putin is not giving them the new arrangement they want, but is instead strengthening the hand of the ministry men, who are often the target of the radicals’ most excoriating denunciations.
General Armageddon
Surovikin, known as General Armageddon for overseeing a vicious bombing campaign in northern Syria in 2016, has not been the butt of the hardline camp’s anger. They credit him with having brought more tactical coherence and focus to Russia’s ground campaign. They had been calling instead for Gerasimov, who they blame for failing to seize Kyiv in the early days of the war, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Lapin, another of their bêtes noires, to be sacked.
Ultimately, Putin has chosen to deal with the internal power fissures plaguing the military by elevating Gerasimov and Lapin, and demoting Surovikin.
Rob Lee, an analyst at the U.S.-based security think tank Foreign Policy Research Institute, noted that Prigozhin had praised Surovikin, and suggested this week’s promotions may “partially be a response to Wagner’s increasingly influential and public role in the war.”
Influential pro-war Russian military blogs such as Rybar, which has a million followers on Telegram, were also scathing about the decision to replace Surovikin. The Rybar blog, the work of several authors all apparently well connected to the Russian military, credited Surovikin with achieving much in his three months as overall battlefield commander and for starting to bring some order to a chaotic campaign.
Russian President Vladimir Putin presents an award to Colonel General Sergei Surovikin on 28 December, 2017 | Alexei Nikolsky/AFP via Getty Images
Rybar fumed Surovikin would be left taking the blame for recent debacles — including the Ukrainian missile strike on New Year’s Day on conscripts billeted temporarily at a college in Makiivka that may have left more than 400 dead. Western military experts say the Russians, who claim 89 died, laid themselves wide open to the devastating attack by crowding the soldiers in one building.
Lapin’s promotion has drawn disdain from Igor Girkin, a former intelligence officer and paramilitary commander who played a key role in Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the war in Donbass.
Girkin, who uses the pseudonym Igor Strelkov, said on his Telegram channel that Lapin’s new role must be “to put it mildly, a misunderstanding.” The appointment represents a “boorish” bid by the Russian defense ministry to demonstrate its invulnerability from criticism and impunity, he said. Lapin was sacked earlier this year after failing to rebuff a Ukrainian offensive that saw the Russians pushed out of the strategic town of Lyman, in the Donetsk region.
Chechen leader Kadyrov publicly blamed Lapin for the loss of Lyman, saying he should be stripped of his medals and rank and sent to the front line barefoot with a light machine gun to “wipe away his shame with blood.” Kadyrov’s outburst prompted a warning from the Kremlin to curb his criticism and to “set aside emotions.”
Surovikin’s appointment in October as overall commander of what Russia calls its special military operation was greeted with delight by Russia’s hawks. Kadyrov praised him as “a real general and a warrior.” He will “improve the situation,” Kadyrov added in his social media post.
Russia’s defense ministry said the reshuffle amounted to “an increase in the level of leadership of the special military operation” and said the change was needed to boost the effectiveness of the military. It specifically cited “the need to organize closer interaction between the types and arms of the troops,” in other words to improve combined arms warfare, the integration of infantry, armor, artillery and air support to achieve mutually reinforcing and complementary effects, something Russia has failed to accomplish.
After his appointment, Russia made a conspicuous shift to pummeling civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, knocking out power stations and water facilities.
The decision to keep Surovikin as Gerasimov’s No. 2 has gone some way to mollify the ultranationalists, but it hardly answers their calls for a root-and-branch makeover of the top brass of Russia’s armed forces.
Over to you, Gerasimov
Whether Gerasimov, a veteran of Russia’s war in Afghanistan, can pull that off remains to be seen. He has experience as a battlefield commander in Ukraine: He oversaw Russian forces and pro-Russian insurgents in August 2014, outmaneuvering the Ukrainians at Ilovaisk in the Donetsk region, where more than 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers were killed. That battle forced then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to agree to peace talks.
Gerasimov is seen as an advocate of hybrid warfare and is the author of a doctrine, named after him, calling for combining military, technological, information, diplomatic, economic, cultural and other tactics to achieve strategic goals. In May, there were unconfirmed reports that he was wounded when visiting the frontlines, but Ukrainian officials denied the claims, saying he had left a command post shortly before they targeted it.
The Chechen leader and other hawks looked to him to reverse a series of stunning battlefield Ukrainian successes and to turn the tide of war in Russia’s favor. The shaven-headed veteran officer, who has the physique of a wrestler, served in Chechnya and Syria. A ruthless and unscrupulous tactician, he oversaw the relentless targeting of clinics, hospitals and civilian infrastructure in rebel-held Idlib in 2019, an effort to break opponents’ will and to send refugees toward Europe via neighboring Turkey. The 11-month campaign “showed callous disregard for the lives of the roughly 3 million civilians in the area,” noted Human Rights Watch in a damning report.
General Sergei Surovikin has been replaced by his boss, Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov | Mikhail Klimentyev/AFP via Getty Images
Since Gerasimov was part of a small circle of Kremlin hawks that advised Putin to invade Ukraine, his future likely now all depends on the outcome of the war. The job he has been given is “the most poisoned of chalices,” according to Mark Galeotti, an expert on the Russian military. “It’s now on him,” he added in a tweet.
Ukraine’s defense ministry took a more laconic approach to Gerasimov’s appointment.
Every Russian general “must receive at least one opportunity to fail in Ukraine,” it tweeted.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kherson, Ukraine, on Nov. 14, 2022.
Ukrainian Presidential Press Service | Reuters
When Volodymyr Zelenskyy became the president of Ukraine in 2019, it made headlines around the world.
That wasn’t because he was a political heavyweight deemed ready to resolve Ukraine’s deep-seated challenges —ranging from an economic crisis to corruption and an entrenched, powerful oligarchy — not to mention the conflict between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists in the east of the country.
It was just the opposite. Zelenskyy was a political novice whose closest brush with politics was playing the role of Ukrainian president in a well-known domestic TV series, before life imitated art and he decided to launch his own presidential bid on New Year’s Eve in 2018.
When he won the presidential election in a landslide victory in March 2019, no one could have guessed that the erstwhile actor, writer and comedian would become one of the world’s most recognizable and respected politicians after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the cover of Time Magazine’s 2022 “Person of the Year” edition.
Artwork by Neil Jamieson, Photograph by Maxim Dondyuk for TIME | Reuters
But under his leadership, and with the fortitude of Ukraine’s armed forces and resilience of the civilian population, Ukraine has fought back and Zelenskyy has won plaudits (he was just named “Person of the Year” by both Time Magazine and the FT) for the wartime leadership he was thrust into.
“I think Zelenskyy has proven to be a remarkable leader, and a remarkably effective one, both as a military leader and as a public figure — in terms of building support for Ukraine internationally, and also in terms of being able to at least keep some things going domestically despite the war,” Max Hess, fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, told CNBC.
“They have continued to pass legislation in line with previous reform packages for international support. And then, of course, I find the really interesting thing is just how [much of an] inspirational leader he’s been to almost everybody,” he added.
Hess said though Zelenskyy certainly had his critics when he became president, their misgivings have been disproven.
“There were plenty of people who were very critical of Zelenskyy [before the war], both in Ukraine and particularly the Ukrainian diaspora who saw him as too soft or weak or pro Russian, or primarily, potentially beholden to oligarchs … obviously, none of that has proven to be true,” Hess said.
“The reality is, I wish we had politicians like Zelenskyy in the West at this point. But to temper that, does that mean he would be the perfect non-wartime president in Ukraine, if there is peace? That’s not for me to say, that’s obviously for Ukrainians to say. But right now, off the back of the … wartime leadership he’s demonstrated, I certainly think he will have universal support there for a long time.”
For his part, Zelenskyy has tried to play down his courageous stance toward Russia, telling the FT that he was “more responsible than brave” and just didn’t want to “to let people down.”
From the start of the war, however, Zelenskyy has been a visible, physically present leader in Ukraine, visiting the front line and war-torn towns and cities. He famously refused an offer from the U.S. to evacuate him and his family from Kyiv, with the Ukrainian embassy in Britain tweeting that he’d responded that he needed ammunition, rather than a ride out of the country.
Moscow was widely believed to have thought it could occupy its pro-Western neighbor without much pushback and it had reason to believe so — tepid sanctions had been imposed on Russia after its annexation of Crimea in 2014, and global business with Russia continued as usual despite Russia’s support for separatists in the Donbas in eastern Ukraine, where a low-level conflict had been ongoing since the annexation.
As such, the seeds of the current war had already been sown by the time Zelenskyy took office but Ukraine’s president seemed reluctant to believe his country could be thrust into war with its powerful, nuclear-weapon-wielding neighbor.
Even in late January 2022, Zelenskyy was playing down the threat of an invasion despite the presence of over 100,000 Russian troops along the border with Ukraine, saying there was no need to “panic.” He was looking to maintain economic stability amid heightened fears in the West that Russia was preparing to invade.
The United States warned in January, however, that there was a “distinct possibility” the invasion could take place in February — a prediction that proved true on Feb. 24.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy Zelenskyy enjoys high approval ratings among Ukrainians for rallying both the country’s forces and public on a daily basis.
Sergei Supinsky | AFP | Getty Images
Now, Ukraine is holding its own and fighting back against Russian forces despite the fatigue and deprivation brought about by months of war and the bombardment of swathes of the country, particularly eastern and southern Ukraine.
The country’s armed forces, armed with masses of Western-supplied weapons, have defied expectations as they continue to counterattack and defend their territory, regaining significant parts of east and southern Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Zelenskyy, has had to get used to flurries of daily, global diplomatic meetings and briefings in which he has had to plead for assistance, weapons and financial aid, as well as updating civilians on a daily and nightly basis on the war.
He’s also had to walk a diplomatic tightrope, knowing Ukraine relies on the largesse of its friends — in terms of billions of dollars worth of weaponry and the tolerance of higher food and energy prices as a result of sanctions — to keep on fighting Russia. That’s been an awkward path to tread at times.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visits Kherson, Ukraine, on Nov. 14, 2022.
Ukrainian Presidential Press Service | Reuters
There was a media report in June that U.S. President Joe Biden lost his temper with Zelenskyy with the report suggesting that Biden had barely finished telling his Ukrainian counterpart that he’d just greenlighted another $1 billion in military assistance when Zelenskyy started listing all the additional help he needed and wasn’t getting, leading Biden to raise his voice and to tell him he could show more gratitude.
After the reported contretemps, Zelenskyy issued a statement praising the American public for its generosity and regularly voices his gratitude towards Ukraine’s allies for their assistance in Kyiv’s fight against Russia.
While the battle is far from over, Zelenskyy does face pressures on the domestic front that will have to be addressed at some point, according to Orysia Lutsevych, head and research fellow at the Ukraine Forum, Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House think tank.
The main three challenges the government faces relate to security, the economy and the health of Ukraine’s democracy, Lutsevych said in a recent Chatham House briefing.
On the security front, for example, Lutsevych noted that there is a strong demand among Ukrainians for Ukraine to be a part of NATO, but it’s extremely unlikely that Ukraine will be able to join the military alliance for years — or ever — “so this is a challenge Zelenskyy has … because there’s demand for it [NATO membership] and it’s not an easy one” to deliver, she said.
Firefighters conduct search and rescue operations after Russian forces hit a cultural center in Chuhuiv, Kharkiv Oblast, Ukraine, on July 25, 2022.
Anadolu Agency | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
“Secondly, the economy, Ukraine is facing a serious economic downfall due to Russian aggression. Its economy might fall up to 40% this year and Ukraine heavily relies on Western assistance and its own ability to collect taxes and to have its budget filled with the necessary funds so here’s there’s a question of how to sustain that economic support. To be honest, Western assistance was coming but it wasn’t enough and it was quite slow,” she added.
“Finally, on democracy, there’s a discussion about the quality of the media space [in Ukraine] as under Martial Law there’s a certain censorship and confidentiality of information, specially related to the military operation,” she said.
Lutsevych added that some TV channels affiliated with former President Petro Poroshenko had been excluded from an umbrella news channel, prompting questions over whether that was done on purpose to limit the influence of the political opposition on national debate.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kherson, Ukraine, on Nov. 14, 2022. The main three challenges the Ukrainian government faces relate to security, the economy and the health of Ukraine’s democracy, one analyst said.
Ukrainian Presidential Press Service | Reuters
Despite such challenges, Lutsevych noted that, overall, Zelenskyy enjoys high approval ratings among Ukrainians for rallying both the country’s forces and public on a daily basis.
“Over 90% [of Ukrainians] approve of his performance, they think that he has managed to mount quite a substantial opposition to withold Russian aggression in Ukraine, but has also mobilized western support in this conflict and this is comething that is highly appreciated iby Ukrainians and they believe that his personal behavior — by staying in Kyiv and not fleeing the country — was able to stabilize the country.”
