Ukraine - The Battle Over Zelenski's Fate Is Still in Balance
July 19, 2025
An intense information operation has been launched to remove Ukraine's (former) President Vladimir Zelenski from office. Behind it are a cabal of Ukrainian opposition figures in coordination which western media and parts of the Trump administration.
The current campaign follows a earlier one which was directed against Zelenski's main advisor and head of the office of the president Andrei Yermak.
Politico.eu introduced Yermak:
The game plan of Zelenskyy's powerful chief of staff - Politico.eu, Jun 3 2025
The once little-known lawyer and B-movie producer — now in the thick of triangular peace diplomacy with the Americans and Russians — is always reverently loyal to his boss. In an interview with POLITICO last year, he referred to him glowingly as the “president of the people.” What else could he say? Yermak has ridden Zelenskyy’s coattails to become the second-most-powerful figure in Ukraine — even a co-equal.
Then the U.S. version Politico.com set out to destroy him:
The Ukrainian official Washington loves to hate - Politico.com, Jun 19 2025
Speaking to allies in private, Yermak has accused Trump administration officials of being Russian assets, according to the first person familiar with the visit, including Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, who has met with Putin four times as Trump seeks to cajole Moscow to the negotiating table.People familiar with the U.S.-Ukraine relationship and Kyiv’s backers in Washington fear that the friction wrought by Yermak could quickly spread to undermine his country’s standing with its most vital partner.
But Yermak survived the public relations onslaught and even managed to increase his control in Ukraine.
Ukraine’s political infighting gets nasty (archived) - Economist, Jul 6 2025
As Trump starves it of arms, there is turmoil inside the government
Three developments in June set the tone. On June 23rd, a deputy prime minister, Oleksiy Chernyshov—once tipped as a future prime minister—became the most senior Ukrainian politician ever charged with corruption. On government business in Europe, he initially delayed returning, creating the absurd image of a minister for repatriating Ukrainians planning his own self-exile.
At around the same time, the cabinet was warned of an imminent reshuffle, and the probable appointment of a new prime minister, the 39-year-old Yulia Svyrydenko. And a renewed attempt was made to remove Ukraine’s fiercely independent spy chief, Kyrylo Budanov—though it ended in failure, at least for now.
Multiple sources identify the shadowy hand of Andriy Yermak, who runs the presidential office but in reality is an unelected chief minister in all but name, as instrumental in all three plays.
Yermak survived and fought back successfully. But now the fight has turned directly against his boss or sidekick Vladimir Zelenski to whom he is bound by money and fate.
Within hours of each other the British outlets Financial Times and Spectator fired a full broadside against him.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused of authoritarian slide after anti-corruption raids(archived) - Financial Times, Jul 18 2025
Politicians, activists and diplomats accuse Ukraine’s leader of favouring loyalists and using wartime powers against critics
Ukrainians have lost faith in Zelensky (archived) - The Spectator, Jul 18 2025
In recent weeks, Ukraine has been engulfed in corruption scandals. Two deputy prime ministers, minister for national unity Oleksiy Chernyshov and minister for reconstruction Oleksandr Kubrakov, have been investigated for embezzlement and treason. Zelensky has also repeatedly tried to sack Major General Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, allegedly because of his growing popularity. Only pressure from the US embassy in Kyiv prevented the sacking of one of Ukraine’s most popular generals, a serving senior European diplomat with knowledge of the case tells me.
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‘Ukraine has two enemies, two Vladimirs: Zelensky and Putin,’ says a former Ukrainian cabinet minister, once a strong Zelensky supporter. ‘Putin is destroying Ukraine from [the] outside, but Zelensky is destroying it from within by destroying its will to fight and its morale. Human rights are being trampled on, there is pressure against political opponents, rich and influential people who could support opposition are being expropriated and opposition media is silenced. And the irony is that this Putinification of Ukraine is being funded by the West.’
On top of those anti-Zelenski pieces the legendary reporter Seymour Hersh is writing that Washington is now ready to oust him.
THE END FOR ZELENSKY? (archived) - Seymour Hersh, Jul 18 2025
Washington wants the Ukrainian president to leave office—will it happen?
[Former General Valeri] Zaluzhnyi is now seen as the most credible successor to Zelensky. I have been told by knowledgeable officials in Washington that that job could be his within a few months. Zelensky is on a short list for exile, if President Donald Trump decides to make the call. If Zelensky refuses to leave his office, as is most likely, an involved US official told me: “He’s going to go by force. The ball is in his court.” There are many in Washington and in Ukraine who believe that the escalating air war with Russia must end soon, while there’s still a chance to make a settlement with its president, Vladimir Putin.There are indications that Zelensky knows what is coming. He has just shifted or fired three officials: the minister of defense, the prime minister, and the ambassador to the United States. As the US official told me, Zelensky “is beginning to read the danger signs.”
Hersh however depends on his sources. There are some claims in his latest which let me doubt their veracity:
I have been provided with new Russian casualty numbers, from carefully evaluated US and British intelligence estimates, that show that Russia has suffered two million casualties—nearly double the current public numbers—since Putin started the war in early 2022.
Given the notorious lack of ammunition on the Ukrainian side of the war the claim of "two million [Russian] casualties", some 50,000 per month, is simply not plausible. Even Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense claims only 1 million. In December 2024 Zelensky claimed less. BBC/Mediazona have counted only 100,000+ Russian killed in action. Here are more reasons to disregard at least some of Hersh' sources.
The big question is of course who is behind the anti-Yermak and now anti-Zelenski campaign. It turns out that these are not just some figures in the Trump administration.
The Ukrainian outlet Strana, blacklisted in Ukraine and Russia, provided some insight.
Internal threat number one. How Poroshenko and Fiala go on the warpath with Zelensky (in Russian, machine translated) - Strana, Jul 17 2025
In Ukraine, an alliance of Petro Poroshenko and grant structures previously close to the US Democratic Party has formed against Volodymyr Zelensky.
'Grant structures' are the 'civil society' and 'anti-corruption' non-government organization in Ukraine which were, until recently, financed by U.S. funds and controlled by Democrats.
After the defeat of the Democrats in the US elections, both grant makers and Poroshenko realized that Zelensky could use the change of power in Washington to crack down on all his opponents inside the country, which Biden did not allow to do before. Therefore, it was decided to join forces to confront Bankova. A significant role is also played by the monetary factor – a sharp reduction in Western grant funding , which hit numerous activists and the media. Against this background, Poroshenko, who has a huge financial resource, looks like a very attractive patron of art for them. At the same time, grantees have their own resources – control over a number of media outlets, and most importantly – influence on the institute of international experts, who have a decisive voice in the selection of judges and heads of law enforcement agencies. And although the creators of this system from the US Democratic Party have already been removed from power in Washington, the system itself continues to function in Ukraine. [..]" the source said.
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"... this alliance has connected all its broad connections in the West, conveying to European politicians the idea that Zelensky is turning into a dictator, a "new Putin", and therefore he needs to be hard pressed so that he does not touch opponents."
It is thus obvious that the recent anti-Zelenski pieces in the FT and Spectator are originating from the Poroshenko/NGO alliance in Ukraine. It may even have paid for them.
But it does not mean that these forces are winning.
If Trump believes that he can use Zelenski to further his aims he is likely going to stick to him, no matter whatever else Zelenski does.
Posted by b on July 19, 2025 at 12:17 UTC | Permalink