Ukrainians are losing trust in President Zelensky over his handling of Russia’s invasion and his rule is becoming increasingly autocratic, Vitali Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv, has said in unprecedented criticism of the country’s wartime leader.
Klitschko, a former heavyweight boxing champion, has been at odds with Zelensky since last winter, when the president accused him of failing to adequately maintain Kyiv’s bomb shelters.
However, Klitschko’s comments are the biggest indication so far of a growing rift among Ukraine’s leadership following its unsuccessful counteroffensive against occupying Russian troops.
“People wonder why we weren’t better prepared for this war, why Zelensky denied until the end that it would come to this,” Klitschko told the Swiss media outlet 20 Minuten. “People 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.”
Internal Ukrainian polling cited last month by The Economist said that Zelensky’s trust ratings were at 32 per cent. The most trusted figure in Ukraine by far is General Valery Zaluzhny, the head of the armed forces, who has a trust rating of 70 per cent. Kyrylo Budanov, the spy chief, is on 45 per cent.
Advertisement
Klitschko also claimed that Zelensky was isolated and that his authoritarian tendencies were a danger for Ukrainian society. “At some point we will no longer be any different from Russia, where everything depends on the whim of one man,” he told Der Spiegel, the German news magazine, in a separate interview.
However, Klitschko, who was one of the leaders of Ukraine’s 2014 Maidan revolution that toppled the country’s pro-Moscow president, said that he did not want Zelensky to leave office until the war was over. He also said it would be “unwise” to comment now on his political ambitions.
A presidential election was due in March but elections are barred under the martial law introduced when Russia invaded. Kyiv has argued that the vote would not be fair because so many soldiers are at the front and millions of Ukrainians have been forced to flee the country.
Klitschko’s remarks come as politics makes a return to Ukraine after a year in which the country consolidated around Zelensky in the face of Russia’s attack. Zaluzhny sparked anger in the presidential administration last month when he said that the war had reached a stalemate that was unlikely to be broken in the foreseeable future. Zelensky denied that the war was deadlocked but admitted last week that the counteroffensive had failed to achieve “the desired results”.
Oleksii Arestovych, a former presidential adviser, has emerged as one of Zelensky’s biggest critics. He has said he wants to be president and has suggested that Kyiv needs to negotiate with Russia to end the war, something that Zelensky has ruled out.
Advertisement
After weathering Ukraine’s effort to break through its defensive lines, Russia is now on the offensive again in eastern Ukraine, where it is throwing huge numbers of troops into capturing the strategically important town of Avdiivka. “The enemy has been given a command to capture the city at any cost,” said Vitaliy Barabash, the head of the town’s military administration.
Russia’s renewed attacks promoted a warning from Jens Stoltenberg, the secretary-general of Nato. “Wars develop in phases,” he told the German broadcaster ARD. “We have to support Ukraine in both good and bad times. We should also be prepared for bad news.” He did not elaborate.
