Their rivalry
Russian President Vladimir Putin is waging a genocidal war in Ukraine that is making strange bedfellows of President Volodymyr Zelensky and his predecessor Petro Poroshenko. After all, just weeks before Putin launched it, Zelensky was accusing Poroshenko not just of treason but of attempting to flee justice to boot.
Poroshenko is one of Ukraine’s richest citizens and leader of its most formidable (pro-European) opposition party. Therefore, it was hardly surprising that he dismissed the accusation as politically motivated.
Ironically, Putin’s invasion not only gave Poroshenko a reprieve from prosecution, but enabled Zelensky to develop a Churchillian reputation that now makes him seem politically invincible. Granted, Winston Churchill’s own invincible reputation wasn’t enough to get him re-elected after WWII. But Zelensky trounced Poroshenko to win the 2019 presidential election 73.22% to 24.45%. So he hardly needs trumped-up charges to dismiss Poroshenko as a political threat…
My bias
I began commenting on Ukrainian politics over 17 years ago with a post titled ““Ukraine’s New Democratic President, Viktor Yushchenko,” April 7, 2005. And, truth be told, my interest in their politics and affinity for their people have been such that I have published far too many commentaries to count since then.
But, to convey my bias, it might suffice to share that titles to posts range from “Update on My Favorite Ex-Communists: the Ukrainians,” September 24, 2008, to “If America Can Elect a Reality-TV Star as President, Surely Ukraine Can Elect a Popular Comedian,” April 23, 2019.
Why Zelensky might not be so sympathetic
Nothing has defined Ukraine since its Orange Revolution in January 2005 quite like factional duels between leading politicians for the presidency, notably Viktor Yushchenko vs. Viktor Yanukovych, Victor Yushchenko vs. Yulia Tymoshenko, and Yulia Tymoshenko vs. Viktor Yanukovych. And it has hardly inspired confidence in Ukrainians citizens or foreign investors that their duels have played out in a country beset by endemic corruption.
Of course, you’d be forgiven for thinking Russia’s genocidal invasion would fill all Ukrainians with such national pride, there would be no time or room for politics as usual. Yet, despite having no apparent reason for doing so, nothing betrays how politically motivated Zelensky accusing Poroshenko of treason before the war might have been quite like him accusing hundreds of seemingly patriotic Ukrainians of treason since then.
Hell, he even fired his security chief and top war crimes prosecutor:
He said 651 treason and collaboration cases had been opened against prosecutorial and law enforcement officials, and that over 60 officials from Bakanov and Venediktova’s agencies were now working against Ukraine in Russian-occupied territories.
(Reuters, July 17, 2022)
Except nothing screams reasonable doubt about these charges quite like the fact that the Ivan Bakanov he’s accusing of treason is a childhood friend…
Does Putin have spies crawling all over The Donbass, which Russia has effectively controlled since 2014, and lurking about in other areas of Ukraine, including Kyiv? Is the pope Catholic?
It’s just that, instead of manic purges, Zelensky might want to look in the mirror if he’s just finding out now that Bakanov, the childhood friend he appointed head of Ukraine’s security services, and Iryna Venediktova, the woman he appointed top prosecutor of Russian war criminals are among those Russian spies…
Zelensky might be paranoid, but Poroshenko is giving him reason to be…
Frankly, every time Poroshenko appears on TV, he gives the impression that he thinks he, not Zelensky, is the president of Ukraine. Significantly, he never fails to say that he is the one who built the army that is fighting so heroically to defend Ukraine against Russia’s genocidal invasion.
So just imagine how “presidential” he appeared when he said this:
‘This is the long-awaited counteroffensive operation. It was started today at 7:00 a.m. (local time) with shelling and missiles attack,’ he told CNN’s Jim Sciutto.
‘This is first time since February 2022 when such a [concentration] of Ukrainian troops with western artillery, with western HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) and western missiles was collected together for this counterattack,’ Poroshenko added.
(CNN, August 29, 2022)
For this is how we in America heard the breaking news on Monday morning of this counteroffensive to retake Kherson. And, with apologies to my Russian friends for the tragic irony, but I hope this battle will prove every bit as decisive for Ukraine as the Russian counteroffensive in the battle of Stalingrad proved for the Allied powers during WWII.
The point is that I immediately wondered why we were hearing of what is potentially the most important battle of this war from Poroshenko, the former president of Ukraine, and not from Volodymyr Zelensky, the current one.
After all, it reeked of grandstanding. Hell, listening to him on CNN on Monday, I was waiting for him to start blurting out Trumpian boasts about how “my generals” and “my army” are going to kick ass and take names, and make Ukraine great again in no time. After all, he’s already on record laying imperial claims like this:
The army is like my child, and I am very proud.
(The financial Times, May 22, 2022)
I’m sure all Ukrainians appreciate you, Petro. Even I do. But please, back off!
Zelensky more wannabe Napoleon than Churchill
That said, Poroshenko’s presidential pretensions pale in comparison with the self-righteous and imperious brand of authoritarianism Zelensky and his aides are displaying. And Western leaders should beware of enabling a wannabe Napoleon who sees them as little more than vessels for his messianic ambitions.
This firing of his top security chief and top prosecutor is just the latest in a series of red flags in this respect. The most glaring for me was when his aides began saying Volodymyr Zelensky, not Joe Biden, is now the leader of the free world. Because they proceeded to show they meant it by criticizing Biden for not braving the war zone, during his visit to Poland, to meet Zelensky in Kyiv.
Whereas anyone in their right mind would’ve expected Zelensky to get off his ass and travel across the border from Ukraine to Poland to meet (and thank) Biden (and then ask for more aid). But that suggested to me even back then that all the Churchillian praise was getting to Zelensky’s head.
After all, even Churchill had enough diplomatic respect to travel across the Atlantic to America, time and again, to meet (and thank) Roosevelt (and then ask for more aid).
And don’t get me started on the red flag of concern inherent in Zelensky’s foreign minister exclaiming indignantly in late May that “NATO has done nothing to help Ukraine”. Hello…
The foreboding fact is that Western leaders have so deified Zelensky and personified in him their aid to Ukraine, they fear any criticism of him would undermine their efforts to defeat Putin’s Hitlerian war.
But it behooves them to begin spreading their praise and conditioning their aid – on Zelensky working more collaboratively with opposition leaders. This, before he begins doing to them in Ukraine what Putin has done to all opposition leaders in Russia.
That said, in commenting on a March 17 report in Deutsche Welle on Zelensky’s address to the German parliament, I advised that Zelensky would do well to emulate Winston Churchill’s wartime situational and geopolitical awareness. That, for starters, he should do as Churchill did by making time to sleep, shower, and shave. Because doing so would do wonders for his temperament and judgement.
Here’s to Zelensky following through on that advice.