The political ceasefire in Ukraine is over. Hostilities have broken out at the pinnacle of Ukrainian power, coinciding with the bleak future that awaits the country on the battlefield. Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko accused President Volodymyr Zelensky of concentrating too much power and leading the country towards authoritarianism. “We are no longer different from Russia, where everything depends on a person’s mood,” Klitschko said last Friday in the German weekly Der Spiegel.
Ukraine’s turbulent political life signed a ceasefire on February 24, 2022, the day Russian President Vladimir Putin announced his invasion. Almost two years later, the tension can no longer hide behind hackneyed patriotic messages of unity. Klitschko, who has been mayor of the capital for nine years and also a presidential candidate, has given two interviews that herald a new phase in Ukraine’s political life.
The mayor of Kiev has taken advantage of the growing unrest that is gaining ground in society. Klitschko criticized Zelensky for making several mistakes. The main mistake was not preparing Ukraine for an invasion. “People wonder why we weren’t prepared for war, why Zelensky denied until the last moment that it was possible, or why the Russians managed to reach Kiev so quickly.” “There is so much information that are not true,” commented Klitschko this Saturday in the Swiss edition of 20 Minutes.
The former heavyweight boxing world champion and political opposition leader expressed the same criticism of Zelensky in an interview with EL PAÍS in September 2022: The president ruled out the possibility of a Russian invasion just a few hours earlier and denied warnings from the US secret services saying that a Russian attack was imminent imminent.
Klitschko primarily accuses Zelensky of monopolizing the power of the office of president, which means that the government and also the Rada, the Ukrainian parliament, remain in the background, where his party has an absolute majority. For Klitschko, city councils are the only countervailing power he believes remains in Ukraine, an increasingly centralized country. Der Spiegel also spoke to MP Oleksii Goncharenko, the best-known voice of the main opposition party European Solidarity. Goncharenko denounced that decisions about an entire country were being made by Zelensky and his right-hand man Andriy Yermak. Goncharenko addressed one of the most common criticisms of Zelensky, the iron control over the media, especially through the unified news broadcasts that have been created since the beginning of the war: “The leader is satisfied with the fact that he does not do that.” Criticism and that it controls much of the media.”
The mayor with the commander in chief of the army
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Klitschko also focused on the issue that has caused the most unease in the presidency: the differences made public in November this year with the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Valery Zaluzhni. This general announced in an interview and a detailed article in The Economist that the situation on the front showed no signs of changing in Ukraine’s favor and that the country must prepare for war in the long term. Zelensky publicly distanced himself from Zaluzhni, emphasizing that it was not true that the front was stagnating and that the country did not need negative messages. The mayor of Kiev supported the soldier: “We can lie to our people and our allies with euphoria. But we can’t do it forever. Some of our politicians unfairly criticized Zaluzhni for his clear words. I give him my support.”
When asked if he would like to become president, Klitschko avoided answering, claiming that the situation required loyalty to Zelensky. In hypothetical presidential and legislative elections, polls still show a large majority of support for the current president and his Servant of the People party. The presidential elections must take place in March 2024. Elections to renew Parliament should have taken place this fall, but according to the constitution, no election can be organized when martial law is in force.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during a visit to the Kharkiv frontline, Thursday, November 30, 2023. Anadolu (Anadolu via Getty Images)
In the summer, Zelensky’s team opened the debate on the advisability of holding presidential and parliamentary elections after constitutional reform, which would most likely be favorable to him. But polls show that the population is against elections because of a variety of setbacks that would limit the plurality of votes, from the inability of Russian-occupied territories to participate to the millions of Ukrainians who have migrated abroad . But from the United States, which alongside the European Union is Kiev’s largest financial and military base, growing voices are joining the Democratic and Republican parties in calling for Ukraine to make an effort to demonstrate its commitment to democracy. The problem for Zelensky is that the more time passes, the greater the dissatisfaction with him. This week The Economist published the conclusions of a poll in which Zelensky has only 32% of the population’s support, compared to 70% for Zaluzhni.
The Economist also reported that Zaluzhni was being pressured by the Ukrainian presidency to limit his public interventions. Sources close to the commander-in-chief told this newspaper last April that the president’s office had asked Zaluzhni to avoid his presence in the media in order to curb his popularity. Other military sources on the country’s southern front say the president’s team has asked another particularly popular figure in Zelensky’s party, Vitalii Kim, the governor of Nikolaiiv, to reduce his public presence.
Cases of corruption and poor military results on the front undermined the public clout that Zelensky had. The major Ukrainian counteroffensive that began in June has failed and the enemy is advancing on the Donetsk and Kharkiv fronts. According to demographic survey companies, the population is growing tired of making sacrifices to continue the fight against Russia. Both Klitschko and Goncharenko are more nationalistic politicians than Zelensky and even less inclined than he to give anything to Russia. But there are also other politicians who are gaining notoriety and are in favor of starting peace negotiations. The most prominent among them is Oleskii Arestovich, Zelensky’s former confidant.
Decisions based on reason rather than emotion are difficult to make as long as the Russian invader continues in Ukraine. However, according to a Gallup poll last October, 60% of the population still supports fighting until the Russians are driven out of the entire territory. Russian atrocities continue, as shown by the video that circulated on social networks this week showing the execution of two Ukrainian soldiers who surrendered in a trench at the front. The army has confirmed the veracity of the images and the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation into a possible war crime.
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