Zelensky Crumbling: Top Opponent Says He's Turning Ukraine Into Authoritarian State
Swiss intel released in August said Zelensky was showing authoritarian characteristics and has attempted to eliminate his chief rival, Vitaly Klitschko
Vitaly Klitschko, the popular mayor of Kyiv and a potential challenger for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, accused the power-mad leader of turning Ukraine into an authoritarian state.
“At some point we will no longer be any different from Russia, where everything depends on the whim of one man,” he told German outlet Der Spiegel, in an interview.
“People [are beginning to] see who’s effective and who’s not. And there were and still are a lot of expectations. Zelensky is paying for mistakes he has made,” he said, according to The Independent.
He also accused Zelensky of lying about the war and unfairly criticizing General Valeriey Zaluzhny, the Ukrainian military’s head and another potential challenger for president. Zaluzhny admitted last month that the war was at a standstill.
“There will most likely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough,” he told The Economist. He continued, “The biggest risk of an attritional trench war is that it can drag on for years and wear down the Ukrainian state.”
Igor Zhovkva, the deputy head of Zelensky’s office took issue with Zaluzhny’s comments and said, “The last thing I would do is comment for the press… about what is happening at the front [and] what could happen at the front.”
Zhovka said Zaluzhny’s comment “eases the work of the aggressor” and stirs “panic” among allies.
“[Zaluzhny] told the truth," Klitschko said, according to Newsweek. "Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth...Of course, we can euphorically lie to our people and our partners. But you can't do that forever. Some of our politicians have criticized Zaluzhny for the clear words—wrongly. I stand behind him."
TRENDPOST: It is worth noting that Zelensky gave an extensive interview to Time magazine last month that was written by the same author who penned his “Person of the Year” tribute (Simon Shuster).
The recent article said Zelensky is still firm in his belief that Ukraine can defeat Russia, which is worrying some of his close advisers. One person close to Zelensky told the magazine that Zelensky is “delusional.”
“We’re out of options. We’re not winning. But try telling him that,” the adviser said. Shuster wrote that Zelensky’s belief is bordering on self-delusion, “verging on the messianic.”
In August, Swiss newspaper NZZ am Sonntag reported that an assessment by its country’s Federal Intelligence Service found that Zelensky was showing authoritarian characteristics and is attempting to eliminate his chief rival in next year’s election.
“In his attempt to eliminate Klitschko politically, Zelensky is showing authoritarian traits,” the intel report said, according to Swissinfo.ch. “It is very likely that Western states will exert pressure on the president and his entourage in this regard.”
The Swiss intel has “credible intelligence” that Zelensky is trying to politically eliminate Kyiv mayor Klitschko before the next election.
Zelensky’s relationship with the mayor has been strained for years, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace wrote. Zelensky blamed the mayor for long blackouts in the capital in the early stages of the war, and Klitschko—without naming names—of “political dances.”
Klitschko blamed Zelensky’s government of slowing the effort by his city by orchestrating endless searches in bomb shelters.
“Have we already won? Are there no other challenges, is Klitschko the main problem? And someone is itching to take control of the capital again,” the mayor said, according to The Kyiv Post. “But you are making Kyiv residents hostage to the political struggle.”
Zelensky announced last month that given the state of the war, it is not the right time to hold elections in Ukraine because it is important that “politically divisive things” stop.
Zelensky, who is wrapping up his first five-year term, found a loophole in the country’s constitution that states elections cannot be held while under martial law. Zelensky declared martial law on 24 February 2022, the day Russia invaded.
The next parliamentary elections would normally be held in October 2023; the presidential election should take place in the spring of 2024.
“We must realize that now is the time of defense, the time of the battle that determines the fate of the state and people, not the time of manipulations, which only Russia expects from Ukraine. I believe that now is not the right time for elections,” he said in a video address last week, according to The Hill.
Zelensky, a law-degree-carrying comedian who played the Ukrainian president on a TV show, ran for office in 2019 and vowed to work to clean up the crony capitalism and corruption in Kyiv. The show was called “Servant of the People.”
The act worked and Zelensky, who was 41 in the spring of 2019, carried 73 percent of the vote. But his government was never serious about peace with Russia, and, instead, instigated a war by appeals to the U.S. and NATO and refusal to address grievances in the Donbas.
Clara Weiss wrote in WSWS that Ukraine has been far from a shining example of a democracy since the start of the war. “All major opposition parties are banned, and opponents of the war and the government are routinely persecuted, arrested, and ‘disappeared,’” she wrote.
She wrote that the Zelensky regime is no longer even trying to hide it and is dropping any pretenses of ‘democracy.’”
TRENDPOST: Weiss wrote that the announcement that elections will be put on ice is just another “nail in the coffin of NATO’s war propaganda against Russia over Ukraine, which the media has portrayed as a war in defense of ‘democracy,’ and the rights of the Ukrainian people.”
Zelensky finds himself in a weakening position as the West turns its attention to Israel and he engages in public spats with military leaders.
Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican hopeful in 2024, touched one of the mainstream media’s third rails during Wednesday’s presidential debate in Miami when he appeared to call Zelensky a “Nazi.”
Ramaswamy, who has been critical of U.S. support for Ukraine, said it is madness to look at Kyiv and see a “paragon of democracy.”
“This is a country that has banned 11 opposition parties. It has consolidated all media into one state TV media arm… that’s not democratic,” he said.
He also noted that Zelensky has threatened not to hold elections this year “unless the U.S. forks over more money.”
“That is not democratic. It has celebrated a Nazi in its ranks, the comedian in cargo pants, a man called Zelensky… That is not democratic,” he said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin told a conference last month that Russia is not interested in seizing new territory in Ukraine and wants the conflict to come to a swift end.