Ukraine is facing the moment of truth, Volodymyr Zelensky announced on Friday, in a tough speech to the nation. “Either lose dignity or lose a key ally,” the president said. This ally is the United States and it is not just any partner: it was its main supplier of weapons in the first three years of the war. Everything changed when Donald Trump arrived at the White House last January and demonstrated from the first day in office his affinity with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. The “peace plan” that Trump now demands from Zelensky is a capitulation before the invader, what the Ukrainian president would consider losing his dignity.
What Zelensky asked the citizens in his message is a question that sooner or later It had to come: do the Ukrainians and their political representatives want to give in to Russian interests and thus stop the war? Or are they willing to continue fighting even though the situation can only get worse? The president made it even clearer when he warned that if dignity is maintained, the country faces “an extremely harsh winter.”
The “extremely hard” period has already begun. Russian bombings against the electrical system cause daily power outages of 14 hours. This is accompanied by the interruption of the heating, telephone or hot water system. On the war front, the situation is not easier: despite the heroic Ukrainian defense, the Russian army is advancing in Donetsk, Kharkiv and has just begun a new offensive in the south, in the province of Zaporizhzhia.
If Trump’s veiled threats to cut off US military aid to Ukraine were carried out, if Zelensky did not respond to the ultimatum to accept his peace plan, the situation at the front and in the rear would get worse. Especially because Ukraine could be left without US intelligence which allows it to detect enemy military positions from the takeoff of Russian planes.
The biggest political crisis
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Fatigue inevitably accumulates in Ukrainian society and there are clear signs of it: the 1.5 million men who hide from mandatory enlistmentaccording to official figures; desertions and unauthorized abandonments of positions in the army, which today are equivalent, according to data from the Attorney General’s Office, to 20% of the troops; and the first major political crisis that the president suffers in the almost four years of war due to corruption.
Zelensky opened Pandora’s box on July 22 when he urgently presented in the Rada, the legislative chamber, a legal reform that de facto annulled the independence of the country’s anti-corruption agencies. Deputies were given a few hours to vote. Zelensky’s decision cost him the first demonstrations in the streets of Ukraine in the almost four years of war, and his first fracture with Europe.
Four months later, few doubt that that movement was a reaction to cover up a wave of fraud that would hit the circle of trust of the head of state.
Zelensky reversed his will that the National Anti-Corruption Agency (NABU) and the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) will come under the designs of the attorney general, a position appointed by him. From NABU and SAPO it was leaked to the media at that time that the main reason for the president’s broadside against their autonomy had a first and last name: Timur Mindich.
Mindich has been one of the most trusted friends of the head of state and his partner in the audiovisual production company Kvartal 95, which turned Zelensky into a famous actor. NABU and SAPO had been following Mindich for months and recording hundreds of hours of his conversations. The content of these investigations would be explosive, and the detonation occurred this November. Anti-corruption agencies made public recordings that would show that Mindich was the mastermind of a network of bribes originating from contracts of the state atomic energy company Energoatom. The fraud would reach 85 million euros.
Two of the main suspects, Mindich and businessman Oleksandr Zukerman, fled Ukraine on November 10, a few hours before NABU searched their homes.
The Energoatom case has already involved two ministers: the head of Energy, Svitlana Grinchuk, and her predecessor and Minister of Justice, German Galuschenko. But not only that, former Deputy Prime Minister Oleksi Chernishov, another man in Zelensky’s circle, was arrested this week for allegedly collaborating with Mindich in laundering money from Energoatom’s illegal commissions. Chernishov was released on bail shortly afterwards.
Double threat
Mindich’s tentacles do not end here: NABU and SAPO have recordings that would demonstrate that the businessman and Zelensky’s partner took advantage of his contacts to negotiate contracts with Rustem Umerov, former Minister of Defense and current Secretary of the National Security Council. Umerov is also one of the president’s most trusted people.
Umerov is a figure who embodies the double threat that hangs over Zelensky. On the one hand, he is questioned about something as sacred as the management of defense budgets; On the other hand, his name appeared this week in the American media as the representative of the Ukrainian president who participated in the preparation of Trump’s peace plan. According to this information, Umerov proposed one of the most controversial points: that Ukraine renounce prosecuting war crimes committed by Russia and establish an amnesty for all crimes committed during the conflict.
Umerov denied the major on Friday, but the opposition jumped for the jugular. Deputy Volodímir Ariev was tasked by European Solidarity, the main opposition force, to demand explanations for what his party considers to be a clause that will allow Zelensky’s circle not to be tried for corruption. In fact, according to the American media, Umerov managed to withdraw a point from the plan that called for a special audit on the management of international funds for Ukraine.
“Such a level of cynicism and arrogance cannot be imagined,” Ariev wrote in a statement, “protecting thieves and stolen goods is more important than protecting the interests of Ukraine.” Ariev also believes that the plan that Trump intends to impose on Ukraine is a “capitulation and a tradition” and that accepting it could cause internal instability in the country.
A study by the Gradus population center presented last October pointed out precisely this risk as one of the factors why the six million Ukrainian refugees in Europe resist returning to their country, even if peace is agreed: according to Gradus, one of the aspects that these displaced people highlight is that the internal social and political situation can be negative if the war ends with a bad deal for Ukraine.
national unity government
Despite the fact that a war is being fought for the survival of the country, and despite the fact that their main ally is leaving them in the lurch, the Ukrainian opposition wants to see the Government fall. European Solidarity is looking for a majority to win a motion of censure to overthrow the head of state’s Executive. Former president Petro Poroshenko, leader of European Solidarity, wants to dismiss the Council of Ministers and for the Rada to propose a “Government of national unity”, a coalition of all parliamentary forces. Poroshenko has assured the support of former Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko’s group and another opposition force, Golos.
Kira Rudik, the leader of Golos, defended in a statement on November 18 that a “reset” in Ukraine with a coalition government is essential since calling elections is impossible while martial law is in force. And not only because of martial law, no political party believes that it is possible to call legislative and presidential elections while there is a war. “A restart is necessary because the situation will get worse,” said Rudik, “for the president it is a good option to get out of the crisis and thus face the unrest, because corruption will be used by our enemies.”
The question is whether the dissidence in Servidor del Pueblo will be large enough to overthrow the Government. Mikita Poturayev, deputy of the party group, announced on November 19 that a split within Servant of the People was being prepared to support the creation of an Executive of national unity. In the last two years, there have been more voices like Poturayev’s who lament that during the war, all political power in Ukraine has fallen to the office of the president.
Dmitro Razumkov, former president of the Rada and ally of Zelensky in the first two years of his presidency, is one of the ideologues of the formation of a Government of national unity. Razumkov assures that the country’s stability depends on establishing counterpowers to the office of the head of state, which currently has no opposition. “Unfortunately, neither Parliament nor the Government are capable of making decisions and implementing them independently today,” says Razumkov in an interview with EL PAÍS.
The mystery of Yermak
The situation is so difficult for Zelensky that, for the first time, from within his own ranks he has been called upon to dismiss Andrii Yermak, his right-hand man. Yermak’s power in the president’s office is almost absolute and the opposition and the media point out that, although his name does not appear in the NABU transcripts, a member of Zelensky’s circle does appear who would be Yermak and who is presented with the name “Ali Baba.” This Ali Baba, according to Mindich’s conversations with his henchmen, was operating to block anti-corruption investigations.
There have also been prominent voices from Servant of the People who have publicly asked for Yermak’s replacement. Fedir Venislavski, one of the most important deputies of the parliamentary group, stated on November 18 on Radio Svoboda that the dismissal of Yermak was an issue that was being debated within its ranks: “I have not asked for Yemak’s resignation, but I think that his replacement would undoubtedly be a way to contain the pressure on the Government.”
On November 20, the same day Zelensky officially received Trump’s peace plan, he met with his parliamentary group. And he did not do it to detail the content of the document, but to convey to them that there would be no changes in the Government nor would he relieve Yermak. Igor Krivosheyev, one of his critical deputies, charged on his social networks against the president for what he considers a lack of decisions: “We are waiting for them to accept the inevitable, political responsibility, because for us, every day has a very high price.”
The irony is that Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov addressed Zelensky in similar words on Friday: “We are making it clear to Zelensky and his government that it would be better to reach an agreement now than later. The margin you have left to make decisions independently is shrinking at the rate at which Russian forces advance.”
Zelensky’s response, in his speech to the nation on Friday, is that the country must now be more united than ever and put aside “politics”: “We must redirect things together, recover sanity. Abandon disputes, stop politicking. The State must function, the Parliament of a country at war must work together. The Government of a country at war must work effectively. And all together we must not forget, or confuse, who is the real enemy of Ukraine.”
The response to this message, according to the opposition, is a Government of national unity. “The problem is that Zelensky cannot work as a team,” laments Razumkov. “He believes in only one type of management, personal management,” he adds. For whatever reason, if the president continues to choose to concentrate power in himself, the consequences of the “extremely hard” months that await Ukraine will fall on him.
