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Against the backdrop of the disaster that Volodymyr Zelensky’s victory in the 2019 elections led to, it would be unfair not to mention his presidency’s positive achievements. Surprisingly, there were some. It’s important to note that by the end of 2019, Ukraine was in a situation where the president could achieve almost everything his predecessors failed to accomplish. However, he almost didn’t take advantage of this opportunity.

The propaganda machine of Kolomoisky so thoroughly destroyed the old political system that, riding the wave of his popularity, Zelensky managed to obtain a single-party majority in parliament. His faction had 254 votes. Together with deputies elected in single-mandate districts and loyal MPs from other parties, the president could easily gather a constitutional majority. Neither Yanukovych, Poroshenko, nor even Kuchma ever managed to do this.

How did Volodymyr Zelensky use this gift of fate? Undoubtedly, the main achievement of his presidential term was the land reform. Ukraine finally recognized private ownership of agricultural land. For about 30 years, not a single president could gather votes in parliament to pass this important bill. The lack of private land ownership hindered the development of the agricultural sector. Hardly any investor would risk building a greenhouse complex, livestock farm, or planting fruit trees on land that does not belong to them. As a result, Ukrainian agriculture suffered: the level of investment in the agricultural sector was extremely low.

Zelensky finally changed this situation. Despite resistance from the pro-Russian “Opposition Platform” faction and Yulia Tymoshenko’s faction, Zelensky managed to get this bill passed in parliament. Together with the “Servant of the People” faction, Petro Poroshenko’s “European Solidarity” faction voted for land reform. After the liberalization of the land market, Ukraine’s agricultural potential has been growing year by year.

During the war, Volodymyr Zelensky took a rather tough stance towards Russia, and this can only be positively assessed. He correctly understood that trying to appease Putin through negotiations or agreeing to lose part of the territories would only worsen the situation. Zelensky did not accept the option of resigning to the loss of territories, which some politicians in the West and even in Ukraine suggested to him. He also categorically opposed freezing the war. Russia was unable to get the break it needed to restore its military potential and consolidate its position on the occupied territories.

During his presidency, Volodymyr Zelensky actively promoted the development of digital services. Ukrainians were among the first in the world to receive digital documents in a mobile application. In many cases, citizens no longer need to personally visit state institutions to obtain certificates, register benefits, and property rights.

This concludes the list of Volodymyr Zelensky’s achievements. Having no problems with passing the necessary bills in parliament, the president showed no desire to combat corruption in the judiciary. Unlike Poroshenko, who did not have a stable majority in parliament, Zelensky had all the opportunities to destroy the judicial mafia. But he chose not to do so, preferring to cooperate with “the right” judges.

After coming to power, Zelensky showed authoritarian traits. He reacted extremely negatively to any criticism towards him. To prevent a decrease in his popularity, the president ordered the shutdown of opposition TV channels. The direct television broadcast of parliament sessions was also discontinued. The president did not want Ukrainians to be able to see critical speeches by opposition politicians.

The economic policy of Zelensky’s government turned out to be a mix of populism, incompetence, and corruption. Large state-owned enterprises, which under the previous president Poroshenko paid significant amounts in profit tax, became unprofitable with Zelensky’s rise to power. Huge funds from the state budget were transferred to dubious private companies to finance the road construction program.

To profit from the construction and repair of roads, Zelensky limited funding for the army. Before the start of the full-scale invasion, the Ukrainian armed forces had a critical level of undermanning. This led to a disaster in the south of the country, where due to the lack of a full-fledged defense, the Russians easily occupied vast territories, including the cities of Kherson, Melitopol, Berdyansk, Nova Kakhovka, and Enerhodar. The surrender of Melitopol and Berdyansk without a fight led to the encirclement of the 500,000-strong Mariupol, resulting in the death of about 20,000 civilians.

At the time of writing this book, Volodymyr Zelensky is still in office as the President of Ukraine and does not hide his desire to be re-elected for a second term. He does not admit his guilt for the failure in preparing for the war and explains everything by unfavorable circumstances. Currently, while martial law is still in effect in Ukraine, society cannot give an objective assessment of the president’s work. But Zelensky cannot hide from history behind the propaganda foam of pro-government TV channels forever. Time will put everything in its place.

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Before the full-scale war began, Volodymyr Zelensky’s electoral prospects looked quite promising. Despite the fact that over three years of his leadership, the Ukrainian economy showed no signs of improvement, his main political rival − Petro Poroshenko − no longer posed a threat in elections. TV channels owned by oligarchs friendly to Zelensky carefully ensured that the former president appeared on air as seldom as possible. Lacking access to a broad audience, Poroshenko was unable to convey his ideas to most voters and could not shake off his low trust ratings among the populace. By that time, Yulia Tymoshenko was no longer considered a serious competitor, and the new generation of politicians were generally loners, lacking support from political parties or influential media resources. Everything was heading towards the next presidential elections following the pattern of 1999, when incumbent President Kuchma was provided with a convenient opponent − the communist leader Petro Symonenko. But now, Poroshenko was expected to play that role.

The main danger for Zelensky was an election scenario in which the opposition would rally around a charismatic politician with a low distrust rating. In 2004, such a presidential candidate was former Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko. Despite an information blockade and a discrediting campaign on national TV channels, Yushchenko almost immediately became the main favorite of the election. Not even widespread vote-rigging could prevent his victory.

Since Poroshenko had failed to rid himself of low voter ratings, a certain vacuum emerged in the opposition environment. Many understood that, despite the former president’s strong desire for a rematch after his 2019 election defeat, his chances of beating Zelensky were slim, especially when the government completely controlled national TV channels. The only chance to overthrow Zelensky was to replicate the 2004 election model. However, there was one problem: the president’s opponents had no charismatic politician in mind who could become the new Viktor Yushchenko.

Theoretically, such a candidate could have been a completely new figure from the intelligentsia: a scientist or famous writer who had not previously taken an active part in politics. Voters might have been attracted to such a character, considering that representatives of the scientific and creative intelligentsia had last actively participated in Ukrainian politics in the late 1980s. Against the backdrop of the former comedian’s silly jokes and his constant failures, this could create a favorable contrast between the incumbent president and the opposition candidate. Most importantly, it would be much harder to discredit a person with an unblemished reputation in the eyes of voters.

Everything changed with the onset of the full-scale war. Ukrainians immediately understood that only the military could save them from Russian occupation and, possibly, death. Since the nation’s hopes were directed towards the military, this immediately drew attention to the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Valeriy Zaluzhny.

Before the war, 49-year-old Zaluzhny had appeared on news broadcasts several times and even participated in a political talk show. But he had no particular popularity before February 24, 2022.

As is known, before the war began, the Ukrainian army was critically undermanned. It lacked not just soldiers, but also ammunition. Nevertheless, even in such unfavorable conditions, the Armed Forces of Ukraine, under Zaluzhny’s command, managed to defeat the Russian army near Kyiv and protected the border city of Kharkiv from occupation.

Zaluzhny’s popularity significantly increased after the successful counteroffensive in the fall of 2022, when the Ukrainian army liberated the right bank of the Kherson region and a significant part of the Kharkiv region. Ukrainians realized that the Armed Forces were led by an experienced commander capable of defeating one of the world’s largest armies. At that time, President Zelensky’s apparent jealousy of Zaluzhny’s and the military’s popularity became noticeable.

It was quite interesting to observe the government’s reaction to this popularity, exemplified by the liberation of Kherson on November 11, 2022. It can be assumed that Zelensky did not like that local residents chanted “ZSU” (Zbroyni Syly Ukrainy or “AFU”, Armed Forces of Ukraine) in the main square and that the military, not the president, received all the glory. On that day, jubilant crowds of people, tears in their eyes, thanking Ukrainian soldiers for liberating their city from the occupiers, were shown on TV channels around the world. But just a few days later, on November 14, journalists from CNN, SkyNews, and Hromadske, who had recorded this video from Freedom Square, were deprived of accreditation in Ukraine. The formal reason was a violation of the rules for working in combat zones.

Zelensky visited Kherson the day after its liberation, on November 12. Surrounded by a tight security ring, he also visited Freedom Square, but nobody greeted him joyfully, let alone chanted his name.

The high trust rating of Zaluzhny began to concern the President’s Office, but they could do nothing about it. Since the war continued, the Commander-in-Chief of the army played an extremely important role in defending the country. Moreover, after the liberation of large territories in the Kherson and Kharkiv regions, there was hope for further advancement of the Ukrainian army to drive the occupiers out of the southern part of the Zaporizhzhia region. At the beginning of 2023, social networks and even the press openly predicted a successful counteroffensive by the Ukrainian army. It was just a matter of waiting. Obviously, in such a situation, Zelensky could not dismiss the popular Zaluzhny.

However, the summer counteroffensive of the AFU did not achieve success. From January to April 2023, the Ukrainian army engaged in prolonged battles in the city of Bakhmut, which took a lot of time and resources. Moreover, ally countries delayed the transfer of modern armored vehicles to Ukraine, without which Zaluzhny hesitated to start a counteroffensive.

Time passed, and as it turned out, alongside the battles for Bakhmut, the Russian army managed to build a powerful layered defense in the south, with a huge amount of minefields and dug-in fortifications. There’s a theory that Zaluzhny’s plan was to distract the Russians with a widely advertised offensive in the Zaporizhzhia region and strike the main blow by landing large forces on the left bank of the Dnipro. But the Russians prevented even this scenario. On the night of June 6, 2023, the occupiers blew up the Kakhovka HPP, and several million tons of water rushed downstream, flooding the low-lying left bank. As a result of this monstrous crime, hundreds of civilians and tens of thousands of animals died, but the goal was achieved. The occupiers secured their bank from a sudden offensive by the Ukrainian army. After this, the main combat operations were conducted exclusively in the Zaporizhzhia region, where the Russians had built an effective line of defense. It was not possible to break through it.

The failure of the summer counteroffensive did not undermine Zaluzhny’s popularity among Ukrainians, but in Zelensky’s eyes, he no longer seemed an indispensable commander. Moreover, the president found a favorite − the Commander of the Ground Forces of the AFU, Olexandr Syrsky. By the fall of 2023, a situation had developed where the Ukrainian army was no longer obedient only to Zaluzhny. Syrsky, who was responsible for the front in the Donetsk and Kharkiv regions, could receive orders directly from Zelensky, bypassing the Commander-in-Chief of the AFU. Additionally, the president had another favorite − the head of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense, Kyrylo Budanov. He also reported directly to Zelensky and had significant military resources at his disposal.

The President’s Office was extremely irritated by any appearance of Valeriy Zaluzhny in the media. He was almost not shown on the “Unified Telethon,” and there were even rumors that Zaluzhny was forbidden to give interviews to Ukrainian media. Whether this is true or not, no one knows, but the Commander-in-Chief of the AFU indeed did not give interviews to Ukrainian journalists after the war began. However, Budanov practically weekly commented on various events, both to local and foreign journalists.

In the fall of 2023, the relationship between Zelensky and Zaluzhny significantly deteriorated after the army commander stated in an interview with The Economist that the war with Russia had reached a stalemate and was becoming positional. According to Zaluzhny, at this stage, one should not expect a rapid breakthrough at the front. Future success depends on who gains a technological advantage over the opponent.

Zelensky did not like the tone of this interview. In the president’s team, there was a tradition of informing the people only about the good prospects of the war. Three days after the interview was published, the Deputy Head of the President’s Office, Ihor Zhovkva, stated that the military should not comment on what is happening at the front to the general public. Zelensky himself spoke out. On November 4, 2023, at a joint press conference with the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, the President of Ukraine said that he does not consider the situation at the front to be “stalemate,” as Zaluzhny had described it. This was the first case of public disagreements between the Commander-in-Chief of the AFU and Zelensky.

After the president’s press conference, someone, obviously, was ordered to start discrediting Valeriy Zaluzhny in the press and social networks. On November 6, an article appeared on the Bastion investigative website stating that the Commander-in-Chief of the AFU, during such a difficult time for the country, somehow finds time to write a scientific dissertation. And most terribly, at the Odesa Law Academy, headed by Serhiy Kivalov, a former ally of the fugitive president Yanukovych.

Then, the baton was taken up by a deputy from the “Servant of the People” party with a rather scandalous reputation, Mariana Bezuhla. For several months, up to Zaluzhny’s dismissal, she published rude posts on her Facebook, writing about the professional incompetence of the Commander-in-Chief and even hinting at his fondness for alcohol.

Since it was clear to everyone that everything was heading towards Zaluzhny’s dismissal, information began to spread in parliament that, on the command of the President’s Office, law enforcement agencies could start investigating the “surrender of Kherson.” And Valeriy Zaluzhny could be accused, along with other representatives of the military command.

Raising the question of “who let the Russians into the south” would have been very risky for Zelensky, even considering that he needed to somehow reduce Zaluzhny’s high rating. Facts indicate that a large part of the blame for the army’s unpreparedness for war lies with the president. Therefore, the team at Zelensky’s Office decided not to air their dirty laundry. On January 29, 2024, two sources stated that Zaluzhny was offered to voluntarily resign. In return, the Commander-in-Chief of the AFU was offered to become the Ambassador of Ukraine to the United Kingdom or to move to the position of Deputy Head of the National Security and Defense Council. Of course, both positions were chosen specifically to bury any political ambitions of Zaluzhny.

Ideally, Zelensky wanted to avoid a situation where he could be accused of dismissing a popular general. That’s why the President’s Office insisted that Zaluzhny himself write a resignation letter. But he refused both positions and also did not want to resign voluntarily.

Interestingly, previously, Ivan Bakanov and Oleksiy Reznikov, each after their resignation, really wanted to get the position of ambassador in London. But the British Foreign Office somehow did not show enthusiasm for either of these candidates.

After Zaluzhny refused to write a resignation letter, Zelensky took a pause. The official announcement of the dismissal of the Commander-in-Chief of the AFU was made a week later, without any scandal, with gratitude for the work done and the awarding of the Order of the Hero of Ukraine.

Insiders from the President’s Office reported that when choosing a new army commander, Zelensky was leaning towards the candidacies of Budanov or Syrsky. Many were puzzled by the fact that the head of Ukrainian intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, had previously had no experience leading any military units. Once he was the commander of a special forces group that made a daring raid into the territory of occupied Crimea in 2016. Then he moved to work in the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense. After the “Wagnergate” and the scandalous dismissal of Vasyl Burba, Budanov became the head of this department.

In the end, common sense prevailed, and Zelensky decided not to tempt fate. The new Commander-in-Chief of the AFU became the more experienced Olexandr Syrsky, Zaluzhny’s deputy and commander of the Ground Forces.

On February 16, 2024, The Washington Post published an article about how the Kremlin had been conducting a disinformation campaign in Ukraine for many months, aimed at creating a rift between the political and military leadership. The essence of the article boiled down to the fact that throughout 2023, Russian propagandists and “troll factories” created thousands of posts and videos on social networks, part of which promoted the theme of a military coup in Ukraine, allegedly being prepared by Zaluzhny against Zelensky.

Indeed, such a campaign of spreading disinformation was conducted, and to a certain extent, it achieved its goal. Knowing Zelensky’s paranoid fear of the possibility of a new revolution, the Kremlin, through structures under its control, in every possible way fueled these fears. The fact that, along with Zaluzhny, practically all members of his team were dismissed, most of whom were experienced generals, indicates that the president’s decision was largely due to personal reasons − the unwillingness to have in the military leadership people loyal to Zaluzhny.

If we discard conspiracy theories that claim Zelensky got rid of Zaluzhny so that he would not interfere with him negotiating with Putin about freezing the war, then the president’s decision arose for the following reasons:

• 60% − the desire to get rid of a possible competitor in future presidential elections;
• 20% − fear of a possible military coup in the spring of 2024, after the formal expiration of Zelensky’s 5-year presidential term;
• 10% − dissatisfaction with the failure of the summer counteroffensive of the AFU;
• 10% − the desire to put at the head of the army a person with whom it would be more convenient for the president to work.

It is worth noting that the Russian disinformation campaign was not aimed at lowering Zelensky’s rating, but at the dismissal of the Commander-in-Chief of the AFU. Zaluzhny is much more dangerous to the Kremlin than the current president. Volodymyr Zelensky is a person who, throughout his conscious life, has shown complete indifference and even contempt for the national revival of Ukraine. An accidental person who, by the will of circumstances, found himself in a difficult situation.

In other words, Putin was much more frightened by the fact that there was a bust of Stepan Bandera on Zaluzhny’s desk. Russia does not need a new Poroshenko, who would consistently develop Ukraine taking into account its national interests. Russia would benefit much more from having an empty-headed populist in Kyiv who, with his incompetence and corruption, would finally ruin the country.

>>> 56. Positive Achievements and Missed Opportunities

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If we ignore the minutiae and focus solely on the historical role of Volodymyr Zelensky, the main grievance against him as president is that his incompetence and corruption left Ukraine unprepared for war. This influenced Putin’s decision to start the invasion.

Zelensky himself probably understands that he will eventually have to answer for the dire consequences of his inaction. If not in a courtroom, then in the pages of history textbooks. To avoid this, the president’s team is actively mythologizing his role in the events leading up to and in the first months of the war. The domestic audience receives these stories rather tepidly, as Ukrainians are well aware of the situation. However, in the West, Zelensky still manages to portray himself as a war hero. This is done not only through the manipulation of facts but also through outright lies.

For instance, in October 2023, in an interview with the British newspaper The Sun, Volodymyr Zelensky claimed that he “survived at least five assassination attempts on his life.” An interesting statement, considering that a year and a half earlier, in March 2022, Mykhailo Podolyak, an advisor to the head of the President’s Office, told “Ukrainska Pravda” that Zelensky had already survived more than ten assassination attempts. However, no one knows the details of these assassination attempts, and no one has seen any arrested or killed assassins.

In fact, there were no assassination attempts on Zelensky. At least, not in the way they occasionally happen to leaders of different countries around the world. There was only information that in the first days of the war, a group of Russian and Chechen special forces entered the Kyiv region with orders to capture the government quarter in Kyiv and kill (or detain) President Zelensky.

This group was actively searched for, and the Ukrainian military command even publicly asked citizens to report on a column of military vehicles with the letter V painted on them. At the time, it was somehow assumed that the regular Russian army used the letter Z on their equipment, while Russian special forces were distinguished by the letter V. Later, it turned out that this was not the case. According to military expert and founder of the Conflict Intelligence Team Ruslan Leviev, the letter Z on military equipment signifies Russia’s Western (Zapadny) military district, and V – the Eastern (Vostochny) military district.

Since storming the government quarter is impossible, at least without partially surrounding Kyiv, no one saw this group in the streets of the capital. Later, information emerged that the military column heading to capture the government quarter was destroyed somewhere in the Kyiv region, but details of this episode are still unknown.

Regardless, Russian troops did not reach Kyiv. The three resonant cases when Russian saboteurs were allegedly seen in the capital were actually so-called “friendly fire” incidents among Ukrainian military. The first such case occurred on February 25 in the Obolon district when local residents reported seeing armored vehicles with Russian soldiers disguised in Ukrainian uniforms attempting to break into central Kyiv. It turned out to be a Ukrainian unit, and unfortunately, several soldiers died due to this misunderstanding.

Another case of friendly fire occurred on the night of February 26, when a Ukrainian unit near the Beresteiska metro station mistook and shot at two vehicles carrying eight servicemen from the 101st brigade. The shooting was initially called a “battle” and “destruction of a sabotage group.” Several months later, the military command admitted to the tragic mistake.

Finally, the third case of accidental shooting due to a lack of coordination among Ukrainian forces occurred on the evening of February 26 near the Air Fleet Bridge, 200 meters from the Ministry of Defense building. One serviceman of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Mykhailo Dyagilev, died in this incident. After this tragic event, there was no further information about battles in Kyiv.

Was Volodymyr Zelensky informed that instead of destroying Russian saboteurs in Kyiv, Ukrainian military accidentally shot at each other? Probably yes. At least, his aides and the head of the President’s Office should have known about it. Nonetheless, Zelensky gladly fed Western journalists horror stories about how they tried to kill him.

Reading publications by Simon Shuster, who recently wrote a book about the Ukrainian president after repeatedly interacting with Zelensky himself and people from his circle, one gets the impression of being offered a cocktail of lies, manipulations, and self-admiration. At least, in the part that concerns the “heroism” of the president. Consider quotes from Shuster’s article in TIME on April 28, 2022:

“The military told Zelensky that Russian strike teams had landed in Kyiv by parachute to kill or capture him and his family…” “As night fell on that first evening, shootouts flared around the government quarter…” “According to him, Russian troops made two attempts to storm the complex…”

All these quotes are falsehoods eagerly told to the American in the President’s Office. Then, without necessary fact-checking, they began their journey around the world, trying to shape a distorted image of the main hero for Western readers.

In Shuster’s publications, Zelensky is tried to be shown to the world as a weary father of the nation, who occasionally shares profound phrases with those around him: “I need ammunition, not a ride,” “I have aged from all this wisdom I never wanted,” and “Horrors make us close our eyes.” The president’s speechwriter’s skill is undoubtedly respectable. But only a very naive person could believe that Volodymyr Zelensky is a modern reincarnation of Mahatma Gandhi.

Ukrainians have long known who they are dealing with. However, some details from Simon Shuster’s book and articles are indeed interesting. At least in that they remind us once again that we are dealing with an accidental person – an actor asked to play the role of a politician. In the first days of the war, when the military, with their lives, heroism, and extremely limited amount of weapons, saved the country from demise, a frightened Zelensky was in an underground bunker, spending time watching Hollywood movies, doing fitness, playing ping-pong, and tasting wines. A couple of times a day, he recorded videos for social networks and television, and late in the evening, he went out to breathe fresh air. The president then complained mostly about the lack of sunlight and fresh air.

It must be acknowledged that in the first year of the war, Zelensky’s heroic image in the West was taken at face value. Americans and Europeans sympathized with all Ukrainians, including their president. Especially since Zelensky masterfully played his role, and his texts were written with the target audience in mind. In front of the members of the U.S. Congress, he mentioned Roosevelt, in the Bundestag, he drew comparisons with the Berlin Airlift, and in the British parliament, he quoted Shakespeare.

But the war continued, and information about corruption scandals related to the theft of money the West transferred for financial support of the Ukrainian budget began to emerge from Ukraine more frequently. And while ordinary citizens did not delve into the details of corruption in a foreign country, politicians perfectly understood that the main beneficiaries of the theft of Western aid were people from Zelensky’s circle.

In 2023, the effectiveness of Zelensky’s speeches decreased so much that he was even denied an opportunity to speak in the U.S. Congress, and a significant part of the Republicans, who were loyal to Ukraine, turned into the main opponents of providing it with aid.

>>> 55. Zelensky Has Encountered a New Problem − General Zaluzhny

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One might think that after the onset of a full-scale invasion, Zelensky’s circle would have abandoned dubious schemes for distributing budget funds. However, neither the introduction of martial law nor even a significant reduction in tax revenues stopped them.

The proven scheme of embezzling budget funds − on road repairs − has not disappeared. Even in the first months of the war, when the fate of the country was being decided and the occupiers stood near Kyiv, the government timely allocated money to private construction companies. In 2022, 95 billion hryvnias (approximately $2.5 billion) were spent on roads.

Undoubtedly, road repairs in the country are necessary. The question is only that, with the introduction of martial law, contractors began to be chosen by direct contract, without holding an open tender. The project estimate was not published − also due to martial law. In Ukrainian realities, this very often led to corruption, and, accordingly, to losses of the state budget. In many cases, the project documentation included construction materials at significantly inflated prices. The fact that funds for road repairs were allocated against the backdrop of bloody battles in different parts of the country, when the Ukrainian army desperately needed ammunition, is another question.

Strangely enough, but the war expanded opportunities for corruption. The occupation of Mariupol with its metallurgical plants, problems with the export of goods through the Black Sea ports, and the forced emigration of several million people had a very negative impact on tax revenues. But the budget losses were almost completely compensated by Ukraine’s allies. The USA, Canada, Germany, Great Britain, Japan, and other countries began to allocate not only military but also financial assistance. This saved the Ukrainian economy and allowed covering the deficit of the state budget even under the conditions of a significant increase in the budget of the Ministry of Defense.

A new scheme of stealing state funds was associated with military purchases. The sharp increase in the number of the Armed Forces of Ukraine required the supply of large volumes of various goods: from food to clothing, fuel, and ammunition. According to Dana Yarova, a member of the Public Anti-Corruption Council at the Ministry of Defense, large-scale thefts are directly related to the government’s decree of February 28, 2022, which simplified procurement procedures for the defense department. According to this decree, which was in effect until the summer of 2023, all purchases previously conducted through open tenders were switched to direct contracts.

For a long time, Ukrainian society only suspected that large-scale theft could occur in defense procurement. But in January 2023, “Dzerkalo Tyzhnia” journalist Yuriy Nikolov accused the leadership of the Ministry of Defense of large-scale abuses, based already on specific facts. He published documents showing that the army was buying chicken eggs at 17 hryvnias each, while the retail price in stores was 6-7 hryvnias each, and the wholesale price was 4-5 hryvnias. Potatoes were ordered at 22 hryvnias per kilogram, although the retail price in stores did not exceed 8-9 hryvnias.

The news about chicken eggs outraged Ukrainian social media users. If few understood the prices of military equipment, everyone knew how much eggs cost in stores. And most importantly, society finally began to realize that the scale of corruption in the Ministry of Defense amounted to billions and was not limited to chicken eggs alone.

Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov reacted to the scandal, rejecting any accusations of corruption. However, he did so in a very strange way. According to him, journalists misunderstood everything, and the high price of eggs was explained by the fact that 170 hryvnias was the price not for 10 pieces, as sold in stores, but per kilogram of eggs. Moreover, journalists did not take delivery into account.

Reznikov’s justifications only added fuel to the fire. He was quickly caught in a lie. Tender documentation confirmed that it indicated the price for 10 eggs because in Ukraine, eggs are never sold by weight. The result of this scandal was that journalists, opposition politicians, and the National Anti-Corruption Bureau began to more carefully study how the Ministry of Defense spends money.

The amounts of allocated funds were very large. The budget of the Ministry of Defense in 2022-2023 amounted to about half of the entire state budget and was almost entirely covered by Western financial assistance.

An audit conducted in January 2023, two weeks after the article about the price of chicken eggs was published, showed that the Ministry of Defense allocated more than 13 billion hryvnias ($370 million) for the purchase of food for servicemen at prices two to three times higher than in Kyiv stores. And these were only food products for some military units in the rear. Further, facts of purchasing military uniforms and bulletproof vests at inflated prices in the first months of the war began to be revealed. A commodity examination showed that the price of 43 thousand hryvnias for a 4th class bulletproof vest at an exchange rate of 29 hryvnias/dollar was several times higher than the prices at that time.

To satisfy society’s thirst for justice, on February 2, 2023, Deputy Minister of Defense Vyacheslav Shapovalov and the head of the procurement department Bogdan Khmelnitsky were arrested. As of February 2024, they are still in pre-trial detention and preparing for trial.

According to Dana Yarova, the scandal with chicken eggs and military uniforms is just a minor episode in a vast sea of corruption. The most large-scale abuses occurred in arms purchases in 2022. Then, the Ministry of Defense distributed tens of billions of hryvnias to dubious firms, part of which simply stole the money and did not deliver the ordered weapons and ammunition to Ukraine.

By the end of 2023, it became known that since the beginning of the full-scale war, the amount of overdue accounts receivable on contracts of the Ministry of Defense amounted to 36.3 billion hryvnias. That is, the state transferred money to the supplier, but did not receive the promised goods. For comparison, 36.3 billion hryvnias is almost 3000 Canadian armored vehicles Senator, which could save thousands of lives of soldiers. Or about 5000 anti-tank missile systems FGM-148 Javelin.

It should be noted that the arrested deputy minister of defense, Vyacheslav Shapovalov, had close ties with Minister Reznikov. Previously, he was his deputy in the Ministry of Reintegration. After being promoted, Reznikov took him to the Ministry of Defense and made him his deputy again, giving Shapovalov the opportunity to manage purchases for the army.

In 2015-2017, when Reznikov was the secretary of the Kyiv City Council, Shapovalov was involved in construction issues, holding the position of deputy chairman of the Kyiv Regional Administration. At that time, Reznikov’s son-in-law Dmytro Shteinhaus received a large land plot in Brovary near Kyiv with an area of 80 hectares from the regional council and began residential development on it.

Despite the scandal with Shapovalov, President Zelensky long held Oleksiy Reznikov in the position of minister. He was only dismissed on September 5, 2023. After the egg scandal, the disclosure of facts of corruption in the defense department intensified. Moreover, Reznikov proved to be a rather weak leader of the ministry. He failed such an important issue as the supply of small drones to the army, dismissively stating in December 2022 that “wedding drones are not needed by us.” But a few months later, it turned out that drones play a very important role on the front line. By the end of 2023, Ukrainian soldiers had learned to use FPV drones so skillfully that in some areas they successfully replaced artillery, holding back the advance of infantry groups of the enemy.

Since most of the information about arms purchases still remains a military secret, journalists do not have the opportunity to check how state funds were allocated. Two facts are of concern. In June 2022, when Ukraine, thanks to Western aid, began to buy weapons at a huge pace, Denis Sharapov, a former business partner of the head of the President’s Office Andriy Yermak, was appointed head of the new state enterprise “Defense Procurement Agency.” Once they together headed the company “European Partnership Media Group,” but in 2018 both left the founders of the company.

The new agency received the authority to dispose of all funds of the Ministry of Defense provided for the purchase of weapons and military equipment. By the beginning of 2023, the state enterprise, controlled by Sharapov and Yermak, spent 355 billion hryvnias of budget funds (approximately $9 billion). This is almost a quarter of all revenues of Ukraine’s annual budget.

According to sources of the “Dzerkalo Tyzhnia,” after the scandal with Shapovalov, Yermak and Sharapov withdrew from arms purchases. But the data on how military purchases were made in 2022 have not disappeared. There is every reason to believe that a significant portion of the money was simply stolen. The best confirmation of this is the total volume of overdue accounts receivable of the Ministry of Defense.

To protect information about corruption in arms procurement, on December 21, 2023, the Verkhovna Rada controlled by Zelensky elected Olga Pishchanska to the Accounting Chamber of Ukraine, and the next month, contrary to the position of Western partners, she was appointed head of this institution. It even came to the point that Penny Pritzker, the U.S. Special Representative for Economic Recovery in Ukraine, arrived in Kyiv. She once again tried to convince Ukrainian officials to cancel the dubious appointment of Olga Pishchanska. But the advice had no effect on the Office of President Zelensky. Pishchanska had been prepared for the position of head of the State Property Fund since September 2023, to replace Rustem Umerov, who headed the Ministry of Defense after Reznikov’s dismissal. And Zelensky stubbornly did not want to abandon his intention.

In 2020-23, Olga Pishchanska headed the Antimonopoly Committee. As it turned out, during her leadership, this institution “forgave” companies of Ihor Kolomoisky fines of almost 5 billion hryvnias.

And finally, the main fact that explains everything. Olga Pishchanska’s sister Svitlana is a longtime friend and neighbor of Zelensky, from childhood in Kryvyi Rih. As she herself says, “we grew up in the same yard.” In July 2019, an Italian company owned by Svitlana Pishchanska, which owns a 15-room villa of Volodymyr Zelensky on the coast of the Italian resort Forte dei Marmi, was registered in her name. In 2019, this property was included in the president’s declaration, but the next year it was no longer there because the villa formally received a new owner.

>>> 54. Mythologizing Zelensky’s Role in the War

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As is known, the decision to invade Ukraine was based on erroneous intelligence data. Putin’s hopes for a blitzkrieg were not fulfilled. The Ukrainian defense did not collapse, Kyiv was not taken “in three days,” and the Afghan scenario did not play out. The Kremlin faced a protracted bloody war for which it was unprepared. Although the Russian army somewhat adapted to the situation by 2023, it is still not ready for a prolonged war. Despite Vladimir Putin’s desire to destroy Ukraine, he cannot do so due to a lack of military equipment and artillery.

According to a report by The International Institute for Strategic Studies dated February 13, 2024, Russia lost at least 3,000 tanks in two years of war. Army replenishment is primarily from stockpiles, through the modernization of old equipment from the 1960s-70s. Russia’s own production of new tanks is estimated at about 200 units per year. Yet, in 2023 alone, the Russian army lost 1,120 tanks.

A similar situation is observed with light armored vehicles and artillery. Russia spends several times more in the war than it can produce. Regarding the modernization of old tanks, their supplies are far from infinite and cannot be depleted to zero. Yes, Putin has no particular problems with mobilization resources, but a war cannot be fought only with infantry and an advantage in aviation. Artillery support and armored vehicles are needed.

To maintain the intensity of combat operations, in September 2023, Putin personally had to ask North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for supplies of artillery shells. Experts estimate that the North Korean regime supplied Russia with no more than 2 million shells, which lasted only a few months of fighting.

The fact that Russia’s armored vehicle reserves are not in good shape is evidenced at least by the fact that in April 2024, the command of the Russian army was forced to urgently transfer 49 APCs from Azerbaijan to the Avdiivka area. These armored vehicles from the 15th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade of the Russian Armed Forces were in Nagorno-Karabakh. After the Kremlin agreed to withdraw its troops from the region under pressure from the Azerbaijani authorities, they were literally moved on wheels to Ukraine to support the ongoing offensive.

Starting in the autumn of 2022, the Kremlin began actively and regularly offering Ukraine and the West to freeze military actions. Ideally, for Putin, the war should end through negotiations during which Ukraine agrees to a range of demands, from not joining NATO to territorial concessions. If Ukraine is not ready for a full settlement of the war through negotiations, Russia agrees to a temporary ceasefire along the actual front line.

Despite public statements by Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov that the main goal of the special military operation is to obtain security guarantees for Russia, this is not entirely true. Talks about NATO expansion are a formal and far from the main reason for the war. After the attempt to overthrow the government in Kyiv failed, the main goal of the Russian president became territorial acquisitions and international recognition of the annexed territories.

What does Putin want as of May 2024? As before, his proposal is peace in exchange for territories. After two years of war, the Kremlin is ready to make even partial concessions. Ukraine must recognize Russian jurisdiction over Crimea and Donbas, and in return, Putin is ready to give Kyiv the occupied territories of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. In addition, Ukraine must refuse to join NATO, and Russia will not obstruct Ukraine’s entry into the European Union.

People like Donald Trump might consider such an offer a reasonable option. After all, Ukraine only loses three regions out of 25. However, this opinion is based on a misunderstanding of Ukrainian legal norms. As I mentioned earlier, Zelensky does not have the authority to change the territorial integrity of Ukraine. Changing the borders is only possible by adopting a new Constitution, without Crimea and Donbas, or amending the existing Constitution. In both cases, a constitutional majority of 300 deputies is required, and the entire procedure takes at least six months. But the main problem is that Ukrainian society is extremely negative about the prospects of negotiations with Putin and, moreover, about giving up part of the territories. Therefore, the Kremlin’s option to agree on and legislatively approve a new border is impossible.

The most likely scenario for ending the war between Russia and Ukraine is a frozen conflict similar to North and South Korea. It is also quite possible that the war will eventually transition to a low-intensity phase, during which both armies occasionally exchange fire, but the front line remains unchanged.

It is important to understand that the sudden death or removal from power of Vladimir Putin could radically change the entire situation. Regardless of who comes to power after Putin, this person will likely stop military operations and try to negotiate a ceasefire on more favorable terms for Ukraine. It should not be forgotten that this war is based solely on the imperial ambitions of one person—Vladimir Putin. Before February 24, the Russian elite generally did not share Putin’s expansionist plans but was forced to comply with the decision to wage war.

More favorable conditions for ending the war for Ukraine, which may arise after Putin’s death, consist of the so-called Hong Kong scenario. As part of normalizing relations with Ukraine and the West, Russia withdraws its troops from all or most of the occupied territories, except for Crimea or Sevastopol. The Crimean Peninsula (or only Sevastopol) is leased to Russia for 49 or 99 years, after which it returns to Ukrainian jurisdiction, like Hong Kong to China.

Probably, such a scenario for ending the war will find many opponents in Kyiv, who insist on the full restoration of territorial integrity within the 1991 borders. But it is worth reminding that, at the time of writing, Ukraine does not have the capability to return Crimea by military means, at least in the foreseeable future. And the prospects for de-occupation of the entire Donbas territory are becoming increasingly elusive each month.

The most optimal option for Ukraine for now is to continue military operations, expanding strikes on military and industrial infrastructure in Russia. To do this, Ukrainian authorities must significantly increase their own production of missiles and combat drones. Freezing military actions along the existing front line is not advantageous for Ukraine, as it would give Putin the much-needed respite to rebuild military potential. The war might resume after two or three years, but the Russian army would come to the new phase of military operations more prepared.

Relying entirely on Western allies is not advisable, considering how difficult it was for the U.S. Congress to pass funding for Ukraine in April 2024. Moreover, it should not be excluded that in the coming years, politicians less friendly to providing military and financial assistance to Kyiv may come to power in some Western European countries.

>>> 53. Corruption During War: Money Over Fear

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