- UPDATED, NEW MATERIAL IS IN ITALICIZED, BOLD TYPE AND [[DOUBLE BRACKETS]]
Introduction
Ukraine’s civil-military relations continue to polarize and deteriorate as Kiev moves ever closer to defeat in the NATO-Russia Ukrainian War. As the position of Kiev’s armed forces on the front deteriorated throughout this year, so did Ukrainian civil-military relations, devolving from tense to primarily conflictual, even ‘pre-coup.’ Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskiy’s power was bound to decline as it became more obvious to those at home and abroad who did not understand from the outset that Ukraine cannot win and will certainly lose the war in lieu of a direct NATO military intervention. The consequences of a vacuum in power and authority on the background of defeat in war can bring coups, chaos, civil war, and state collapse (“Maidan Meltdown, Ukrainian Chaos, and a Russian Quagmire?,” Russian and Eurasian Politics, 15 August 2023, https://gordonhahn.com/2023/08/15/maidan-meltdown-ukrainian-chaos-and-a-russian-quagmire/). As Ukraine’s full defeat nears and Zelenskiy’s position weakens, the most likely players to seize power from Zelenskiy in lieu of presidential elections will be armed ones. This means the numerous, well-armed ultranationalist and neofascist elements in Ukraine’s army and society and/or the professional military’s leadership, as has been noted previously (https://gordonhahn.com/2022/09/08/zelenskiy-and-zaluzhnyi/; https://gordonhahn.com/2023/08/15/maidan-meltdown-ukrainian-chaos-and-a-russian-quagmire/ and (https://gordonhahn.com/2022/07/29/regime-instability-in-kiev/). As has been the case with many of the schisms that have emerged in Ukrainian society over the last few decades, US involvement is contributing to growing divisions and tensions with the Ukrainian state, regime, and society. Most notably, the US insistence on the failed counteroffensive has widened the divide between Zelenskiy and some of his top generals, most notably Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Valeriy Zalyuzhniy (https://gordonhahn.com/2022/09/08/zelenskiy-and-zaluzhnyi/). This article reviews these developments.
The First Civil-Military Cleavages
Civil-military tensions emerged in the very first months after Russia began its ‘special military operation.’ After Washington and Brussels scuttled the successful Russian-Ukrainian negotiations and a preliminary agreement initialed by both Zelenskiy and Russian President Vladimir Putin, conflict emerged between the civilian leadership in Kiev, on the one hand, and regular military and quasi-military army units, such as the neofascist Azov Batallion, on the other hand. Russia’s capture of the Azov seaport of Mariupol’, the exposure of war crimes by the Azov Battalion, and the long Russian siege of the Azovstal’ Steel Plant where Azov fighters held out and pressured the regime and military to send forces to break them out from the Russian encirclement sparked mutual scapegoating and recriminations. During the siege of Azovstal’ that sealed the fate of Mariupol, the deputy commander of the neo-fascist Azov Battalion fighters there criticized politicians like then presidential advisor Oleksiy Arestovich, who had warned the Azovtsy to “mind their own business” for expressing resentment at the lack of a retreat plan to save Azov fighters. There was widespread dismay across the Ukrainian social net that the civilian authorities were not doing enough to break the encirclement either militarily or through negotiations (https://strana.news/articles/390297-ukrainskaja-oppozitsija-obvinjaet-ofis-prezidenta-v-dopushchenii-okkupatsii-territorij-ukrainy.html). The Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s statement that a military operation to break the Azovstal’ encirclement was seen by some to have been the result of the generals’ breaking under civilian pressure (https://strana.news/news/390472-v-minoborony-schitajut-chto-azovstal-nevozmozhno-deblokirovat-voennym-putem.html).
Civil-military tensions became more generalized in early May. Arestovich openly criticized the military leadership, referring to “criminality” and “treason” that need to be investigated and punished. Indeed, he criticized the entire state bureaucracy in response to charges of incompetence at the presidential level: “And 360 thousand bureaucrats between us and the land? They are who? Do they have anything to answer for? And the military command, to which there are already many questions?” Voices representing the military and indicted opposition leader, former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko, shot back, criticizing Arestovich and other civilian critics. One military voice reported to be close to chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces (VSU) General Staff, Gen. Valeriy Zalyuzhniy, asserted: “Hundreds of killed and wounded men and women every day are securing (your) tasty coffee in sunny Kiev. Every day. And to search today for someone to blame among them is far from the best idea. The guilty are not in the army, though there are some who can answer for something, the guilty are in the high offices that formed the budget policy and determined who would serve in key posts.” A Ukrainian journalist predicted that if the Office of the President (OP) continued to criticize the military, the consequences for the critics would be “devastating” (https://strana.news/articles/390297-ukrainskaja-oppozitsija-obvinjaet-ofis-prezidenta-v-dopushchenii-okkupatsii-territorij-ukrainy.html).
In early June, Zelenskiy and Gen. Zalyuzhniy differed over the timing of withdrawal from Severodonetsk and where to form a new defensive line against the Russian offensive in Luhansk and Donetsk Oblasts. Zelenskiy demanded that the army hold out as long as possible in Severodonetsk and create a defensive line just east of the city, risking encirclement of thousands of troops. Zalyuzhniy called for puling back farter and forming a defensive line running north-south through Kramatorsk (https://strana.news/news/394302-zelenskij-prokommentiroval-situatsiju-v-severodonetske.html?fbclid=IwAR0aJ4UE07ep1mLoeV1tsI48kqicxIX_uvcLFnPnnC7cWFsObmyHh28RF9w). That these differences went public so early and by virtue of the Ukrainian military’s top commander, publicly contradicting the president, testified not just to depth of the disagreements developing within the Ukrainian state over the war crisis, but to the weakness of military subordination to the civilian leadership. A key element in any stable state system is precisely this hierarchical subordination of the military to the civilian leadership, and this includes complete abstention by the former’s officers and soldiers from the expression of any and all public differences with the latter. When this norm is violated, we have evidence of the professional military’s politicization—the foundation element of civil-military conflict and in the event of further degradation the rising risk of a military coup. Although the USSR had a fairly well-institutionalized, though totalitarian, then authoritarian system of civilian supremacy over the military founded in the centralized, mono-organizational CPSU-led Party-state, it is vital to remember that an independent Ukrainian state and its military have a brief existence now of thirty-two years and limited practice of civil-military relations in a more or less pluralist system. The state’s and its institutions’ youth is enough to propose doubt about the extent to which its state institutions, a republican political culture, and proper civili-military relations have stuck or taken root.
The civilian leadership soon began to be plagued further by defections and corruption in the intelligence and law enforcement organs—potential key allies of the military in any showdown. On July 17, 2022 Zelenskiy fired the head of Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) Ivan Bakanov and Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Irina Venediktova, blaming them ostensibly for the large number of defections to Russian among security and law enforcement officials. He announced that “651 criminal proceedings were registered for high treason and collaboration activities by employees of the prosecutor’s office, pre-trial investigation bodies, and other law enforcement agencies. In 198 criminal proceedings, persons were noted for suspicion, and more than 60 employees of the bodies and the SBU remained in the occupied territory and are working against our state.” The firings were apparently a response to what Zelenskiy called “an array of crimes against the foundations of the national security of the state and the connections recorded between the employees of the law enforcement agencies of Ukraine and the special services of Russia.” Bakanov’s assistant and former head of the Crimean SBU Oleg Kulinich was arrested for espionage (https://strana.news/news/399930-zelenskij-rasskazal-ob-uvolnenijakh-venediktovoj-i-bakanova-video.html, https://strana.news/news/399927-zaderzhanie-eks-hlavy-sbu-kryma-i-konflikt-s-ermakom-podopljoka-otstavki-bakanova.html, and https://vesti.ua/strana/est-sereznye-voprosy-prezident-obyasnil-kadrovye-resheniya). The next day Zelenskiy fired 28 SBU officials (https://strana.news/news/400073-zelenskij-nameren-uvolit-28-sotrudnikov-sbu-video-18-ijulja.html).
On July 20th Zelenskiy fired the SBU’s deputy head and SBU regional heads in Kharkiv, Sumy, and Poltava. The seriousness of this crisis cannot be overstated. Bakanov and Zelenskiy are friends going back to the same neighborhood in the city of Kryvyi Rih. Bakanov then ran Zelenskiy’s entertainment company as well as his presidential campaign in 2019. Then Zelenskiy appointed Bakanov to lead the SBU in 2019. It may be that at least some of these firings are the result of a failed intelligence operation to convince several Russian pilots to defect with their warplanes, for which seven Russian military men were arrested, as announced on July 25th. But most are the result of the defections to Russia, as Zelenskiy noted; something that would hardly be chosen as an alibi to cover the failed operation or something else, as it greatly discredits his administration if not the Maidan regime itself.
On September 7, 2022, Gen. Zaluzhnyi and Lieutenant General Mikhail Zabrodskii, the first Deputy Chairman of the Ukrainian Rada’s Committee for National Security, Defense and Intelligence, wrote a revealing article for UkrInform (www.ukrinform.ua/rubric-ato/3566162-ak-zabezpeciti-voennu-kampaniu-u-2023-roci-ukrainskij-poglad.html?fbclid=IwAR2d2UiTdJgfvyhYvB1snnMCqYEjYjch0VvtxKTcNrfUZO3fFRGdMEdVfh0). The article was of great interest for several reasons. First, it reflected the strategic thinking of the Ukrainian military command at that point in time, the complete dependence of Ukrainian military capability on Western military and financial support, and intentions if Ukraine was well-supported, to escalate the war, seize back Crimea from Russia, and engage in massive artillery and other air attacks on Russian territory. Most important were the article’s indications of the Ukrainian military command’s disagreement with President Zelenskiy’s decision to conduct offensives in the south in the Kherson direction and in the north in the Izyum direction without, in the authors’ view, the proper preparation and sufficient manpower and weaponry. Contrary to the professional military’s approach, the civilian leadership sought to carry out a military offensive for what seemed to be largely political reasons at great costs to Ukraine’s personnel and weapons stockpiles without any real prospects of making a permanent breakthrough on either front.
Zalyuzhnyi’s article was a somewhat cryptic critique of Zelenskiy’s September counteroffensives in the south and north and a warning not to be hasty in carrying out a larger counteroffensive in 2023. In arguing for the creation of a Ukrainian military capable of conducting a counteroffensive “in 2023” to take Crimea, Zalyuzhnyi notes: “… (I)n 2023, everything seems less clear. In fact, for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the situation will be a complex combination of the actual position of the front line, the available resources and a set of combat-ready troops and, obviously, finding the strategic initiative in the hands of the enemy (my emphasis).
At the same time, following this logic, we will express strong reservations about the outline of the front from the point of view of the Ukrainian side. Its contours have an extremely unfavorable configuration, again on the Izyum and Bakhmut directions (my emphasis). The enemy’s significant interference shackles any operational maneuver for the Ukrainian troops and requires, in fact, a double set of forces to contain it.” In other words, the Ukrainian military lacked, in Zalyuzhniy’s view, the forces necessary for conducting the counteroffensives then underway around the Izyum bridgehead in the north, slightly east of Kharkiv. The situation “in the south and east is no better,” Zaluzhnyi also noted. “The threat of the enemy’s advance in the direction of Zaporozhye has already been noted. In addition, the danger of the enemy developing partial success in the direction of Gulyai-Pole is not disappearing, which, under certain conditions, could pose a threat to the capture of the entire grouping of Ukrainian troops in the East. The existence of the enemy’s operational bridgehead on the right bank of the Dnieper River requires additional efforts to prevent its expansion.” Instead of the counteroffensives ongoing in early autumn 2022 – offensives surely approved if not conceptualized and certainly ordered by Zelenskiy – Zaluzhnyi was calling for “several consecutive, and ideally simultaneous counter-attacks during the 2023 campaign.” Zalyuzhniy and his co-author then outlined a series of measures – the creation of 20 new brigades and weapons systems capable of striking Russia at a depth of 2000 kilometers, for example — needed to be taken before such simultaneous counteroffensives, an offensive to take Crimea, and bringing the war to Russian territory and its population can begin in 2023-2024 (www.ukrinform.ua/rubric-ato/3566162-ak-zabezpeciti-voennu-kampaniu-u-2023-roci-ukrainskij-poglad.html?fbclid=IwAR2d2UiTdJgfvyhYvB1snnMCqYEjYjch0VvtxKTcNrfUZO3fFRGdMEdVfh0).
It was perhaps a cryptic signal that Zaluzhnyi chose Lt. Gen. Zabrodskii as his co-author. Zabrodskii is a leader of the nationalist opposition ‘European Solidarity’ party led by former president Petro Poroshenko, under indictment by Zelenskyi’s prosecutors. Poroshenko tended to coopt the support of more radical ultranationalists and neofascists during his presidency, as has Zelenskii during his. At the same time Zalyuzhniy has been photographed in his office with a picture of the fascist anti-Semitic, anti-Russian, and anti-Polish Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists leader Stepan Bandera on the wall. The article came out on the background of ‘chatter’ in the Ukrainian and Russian press, media, in particular on Telegram channels reporting that Zaluzhniy was opposed to Zelenskiy’s plan to conduct dual counteroffensives now, that Zaluzhnyi recently convinced Zelenskiy to halt the southern counteroffensive in Kherson and divert resources to the northern counteroffensive in Izyum. All this was more evidence of the mounting friction between the military and political leaderships in the country – understandable in the nearly catastrophic situation Ukraine finds itself in – specifically between the Office of the President and Zelenskiy, on the one hand, and the military command and elements within the political opposition, on the other hand, over the conduct of the war. As I wrote at the time: “Although we are certainly not there yet, the risk of instability in Kiev appears real and could be growing” (https://gordonhahn.com/2022/09/08/zelenskiy-and-zaluzhnyi/).
Zelenskiy’s ‘offensives’ in Kherson and Kharkov were successful, though he, the Maidan regime, and the West overstated the degree of success. They did force the Russians to rapidly withdraw, but this occurred without a much of a fight at all, no less a rout, especially in the south where there was speculation of an agreement that the superior Ukrainian forces would allow the Russian to withdraw without much nudging by artillery or infantry. Nevertheless, these successes were portrayed by Zelenskiy and the West as exemplary routs of Russian forces causing high casualties. Those simulacra paved the way for Zelenskiy’s belief in his own military prowess and his decision to stand and defend Bakhmut. Disinformation aimed at others led to the misinformation of themselves to Ukraine’s approaching ruin.
Disagreements between the civilian and military leadership intensified over the situation surrounding Bakhmut (the city Russians call ‘Artyomevsk’). Zelenskiy and the civilian leadership insisted on defending Bakhmut until the end, but the military leadership in the person of Gen. Zalyuzhniy made it known, again publicly, that it would be better to withdraw and set up a defense line farther west. Zalyuzhniy had favored a withdrawal from Bakhmut in mid-February, and some commanders and rank-and-file military had questioned the need to remain and defend the city. But Zelenskiy insisted on holding the line at Bakhmut until it fell in fierce fighting with high numbers of Ukrainian casualties (www.bild.de/politik/ausland/politik-ausland/ukraine-praesident-streitet-mit-general-ueber-die-blutigste-schlacht-des-krieges-83106290.bild.html?_x_tr_sl#fromWall; https://kyivindependent.com/bild-zaluzhnyi-and-zelensky-have-conflicting-views-on-bakhmut/; and https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/07/europe/ukraine-volodymyr-zelensky-cnn-interview-bakhmut-intl/index.html). Zelenskiy said in his March 5th daily evening address: ““I told the chief of staff to find the appropriate forces to help the guys in Bakhmut. There is no such part of Ukraine that can be abandoned. …There is no Ukrainian trench in which the resilience and heroism of our soldiers would not be valuable” (https://edition.cnn.com/europe/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-news-03-06-23/h_7b449eeb26e5381b2fb36b6fc37569d5). Certainly, others, likely Zalyuzhniy himself, saw not so much ‘resilience’ as needless sacrifice of Ukraine’s soldiers. After Bakhmut’s fall, there were Western recriminations of the Ukrainian president for attempting to hold Bakhmut at such a high cost in men and material, as rumors began to appear that elements in the West supported Zelenskiy’s replacement by Zalyuzhniy.
Moreover, the retention of a large force east of Bakhmut in the hope of seizing it back from the Russians was being criticized by US officials in press leaks by August as the much vaunted Ukrainian counteroffensive but ultimately ill-advised, failed and disastrous summer counteroffensive was exposed for what it was (www.nytimes.com/2023/08/22/us/politics/ukraine-counteroffensive-russia-war.html).
New Phase: The Failed Counteroffensive
Although Western leaders had pushed the offensive on Kiev before it had sufficient men and arms to have any chance of making more than insignificant and usually temporary gains, as Zalyuzhniy would intimate on its eve, it was indeed inside Ukraine that the aftermath is having the greatest political fallout. As the counteroffensive continued to bog down by mid-summer and Ukrainian casualties multiplied, both Zalyuzhniy and Zelenskiy were more at odds with the West that with each other. They blamed the counteroffensive’s fecklessness not unfairly on the West’s hasty demands for one while it failed to provide sufficient military assistance for its success. Kiev was set up for failure: a counteroffensive the West itself had demanded as a kind of test as to whether Kiev deserves continuing military aid was given insufficient military aid.
Zelenskiy made his disenchantment with NATO and the West known both before and during NATO’s Vilnius summit. In a June 30th Washington Post interview, he seemed to reiterate his opposition to the conduct of the counteroffensive without sufficient fire power (recall the pre-offensive pressure from Kiev for the provision of F-16s) as well as Kiev’s grievances regarding insufficient arms in general, thus setting up the West as scapegoat not only for the counteroffensive but for any war defeat (www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65971790). Zalyuzhniy condemned Western expectations that the Ukrainian military do what no Western or Russian military would ever attempt to do under NATO doctrine – carry out a major offensive without air and artillery superiority; this ‘pissed him off.’ “It’s not a show the whole world is watching and betting on or anything. Every day, every meter is given by blood,” Zalyuzhniy complained. “Without being fully supplied, these plans are not feasible at all (my emphasis). But a mere nine days prior, Zelenskiy had made a similar criticism, and the Washington Post covered, noting the general did not have in mind his president. (www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/06/30/valery-zaluzhny-ukraine-general-interview/). However, ‘This is not a show’ is a comment that might be construed as a subconscious slight against the showman president who seems hell bent on winning as quickly and bloodily as possible, while he and his wife bask in the global limelight, shining with such simulacra age ‘superstars’ as Greta Thunberg, and while Zalyuzhniy’s soldiers and even commanders die in pools of blood and mud. But the unfeasible counteroffensive’s plan, time, and place were not designed in Washington alone. Kiev had agency, and its top agent was Zelenskiy, with whom the buck stops, and its second agent was Zalyuzhniy. This set up further intensification of tensions between Ukraine’s now two top leaders.
By early September, when it had become clear even in Washington that the counteroffensive had been a complete failure and disaster, expending perhaps as many as 80,000 Ukrainian casualties and nearly all the Western military equipment supplied for it, Zelenskiy persisted to claim success but at the same time scapegoated the military. In a September 2nd CNN interview, he claimed: ““Ukrainian forces are moving forward. Despite everything and no matter what anyone says, we are advancing” (https://edition.cnn.com/2023/09/02/europe/zelensky-counteroffensive-ukraine-intl/index.html). Zelenskiy then refashioned the goals of the counteroffensive. Instead of completing the original mission of marching to the Azov Sea through Zaporozhe, splitting Russia’s southern front, and breaking through all of Russia’s Romananeko defense lines to enter Crimea, he now said that by year’s end Ukrainian forces would take three cities: Tokmak in southern Kherson in the south and in the west Bakhmut and Soledar, lost in spring this year (https://ctpaha.media/news/445977-vladimir-zelenskij-poobeshchal-osvobozhdenie-bakhmuta-i-eshche-dvukh-horodov.html and https://www.pravda.ru/news/world/1889085-stalo_izvestno_kakie_goroda_poobeschal_vernut_zelenskii/). In mid-October, he stated that Ukraine’s army “should advance at least 500 meters per day” (https://24tv.ua/ru/obrashhenie-vladimira-zelenskogo-22-oktjabrja-glavnoe-video-24-kanal_n2416830).
Zelenskiy started his active attack on the military proper cautiously with an ‘artillery preparation’ by firing all of the country’s military recruitment office chiefs—some 50 military or quasi-military officials – for massive corruption these officed indeed routinely engaged in, not to mention their brutal coercive methods of sweeping delinquent draftees off the streets. In August Zelenskiy fired Defense Minister Dmitrii Reznikov along with all six of his deputy ministers in August, with rumors of more corruption circulating in Kiev and Washington.
The same month, Zelenskiy and the Office of the President (OP) began moving to coopt military elements and thus split the military establishement by creating and recruiting into a new pro-Zelenskiy political party and elite to replace his Servants of the People (Slugi Naroda) party (https://t.me/rezident_ua/19475). It was reported that the candidate list of this “new party/bloc’ would be headed by none other than Zelenskiy’s wife Yelena. The need to draw on the Ukrainian first lady’s assumed political gravitas was attributed to OP Chief Andriy Yermak’s, if not Zelenskiy’s firm belief that Zalyuzhniy indeed has political ambitions (https://t.me/rezident_ua/20173). Аn International Republican Institute poll conducted in the second week of September 2023 likely on Bankovaya’s request asked respondents whether they support the idea of war veterans forming their own political party, with 45 percent absolutely supporting the idea, 33 percent most likely supporting it, and only 15 percent opposing it to one degree or another. The survey also asked about attitudes regarding the membership of active military participating in political parties, with 37 percent absolutely in support, 36 percent most likely in support, and a mere 20 percent opposed to one degree or another (https://iri.org.ua/sites/default/files/editor-files/FINAL-UKR-23-NS-02-UKR%20for%20public.pdf, pp. 35 and 37). The survey also asked respondents to express approval or disapproval of political leaders and institutions. The military easily outpaced Zelenskiy, and Zalyuzhniy and the security services conspicuously were left off the list of possible choices: military – 82% absolutely approve, 16% mostly approve; Zelenskiy – 42/40, Foreign Minister Dmitro Kuleba – 32/41, the Police – 26/42, Defense and Security Council of Ukraine Secretary Oleksiy Danilov – 21/38, local authorities – 17/35; Cabinet of Ministers – 10/34; and Supreme Rada – 5/22 (https://iri.org.ua/sites/default/files/editor-files/FINAL-UKR-23-NS-02-UKR%20for%20public.pdf, p. 40). The survey shows that the military is significantly more popular among the populace than Zelenskiy and far more popular than all other officials and all civilian institutions. It also shows that the Ukrainian army’s declining fortunes at the front are telling on Zelenskiy’s popularity but not to any considerable degree on that of the military. This could very well be a result of Zelenskiy’s increasingly unrealistic public assessments of the state of the war.
By September Ukraine’s security service, the SBU, was targeting top generals, including Gen. Zalyuzhniy, in an investigation into ‘the surrender of the south’ in Kherson and Zaporozhe at the beginning of the war, according to the BBC’s Ukrainian Service of the BBC. Zelenskiy’s OP was the Ukrainian BBC’s source, and that source implied and indeed demonstrated the political character of the investigation or at least the leak regarding it. According to the report, invstigators had already interrogated more than 150 persons, presumably all or almost being military officers. Among the questioned were defense forces commander Sergei Nayev, former commanders of the ‘South’ Group of Forces Andrei Koval’chuk and Andrei Sokolov, commanders of other military formations in the ‘South’ group, former Chief of the Genrral Staff Gen. Viktor Muzhenko, who was working with Zalyuzhniy on 24 February 2022, one of Muzhenko’s predecessors at the General Staff, Gen. Ruslan Khomchak, and former chairman of Kherson Oblast Administration Gennadii Lagutu, found dead in Kiev on 16 September supposedly as a result of suicide (https://strana.news/news/445915-hlavkom-vsu-mozhet-stat-fihurantom-uholovnoho-dela-po-zakhvatu-rossijanami-juha-ukrainy.html). The BBC’s OP source reported that Zalyuzhniy had already been questioned by SBU investigators but was not “yet” a target of the investigation, casting suspicion on Zalyuzhniy. He added: “We know there is such a case, the military figures there. We need to find out why the bridges were not blown up, and the Russians were able to enter and occupy the Kherson region so quickly… There is a statute of the Armed Forces of Ukraine; the military had to act according to this statute. It is not the president who should give the command ‘Blow up the bridges!’ The military should do it based on the situation that was in place. The investigation should sort this out” (https://strana.news/news/445996-pochemu-nachali-raskruchivat-delo-o-sdache-juha-ukrainy-i-zachem-tuda-vpisali-zaluzhnoho.html).
The Ukrainian BBC article had some resonance, bing republished in part in other Ukrainian media. One Ukrainian media commentary noted the rising civil-military tension inherent in this potential purge of the military:
“However, it is possible that such a status (for Zalyuzhniy as a suspect) may appear over time. Looking at such a possible development of events, in narrow political circles, the case of the occupation of the South is already called the ‘Zaluzhny case’…
“The Ukrainian BBC also showed that the military perceived the investigation as an attempt by Zelenskiy and the presidential team to scapegoat the military for the counteroffensive and indeed the war’s failure: “But among the military, as the article says, there are fears that they want to “appoint the generals guilty in order to quickly satisfy the public demand.” However, as the interlocutors of journalists in military circles say, in this context it is important to assess the country’s preparation for war before it begins and the decisions of the civilian authorities to strengthen the country’s defense capability.
“According to General Sokolov, there was a catastrophic shortage of troops to defend the whole country from Belarus to the Crimea. Therefore, according to the general, before the war the country should have to declare mobilization in order to dramatically increase the number of the Armed Forces. But it just wasn’t done. And mobilization is announced by the political leadership of the country. That is, it seems, reading between the lines, that the responsibility primarily lies not with the military, but with President Zelensky and his inner circle.
“Sources in the General Staff also say that this investigation is causing some pressure on the military command” (https://strana.news/news/445996-pochemu-nachali-raskruchivat-delo-o-sdache-juha-ukrainy-i-zachem-tuda-vpisali-zaluzhnoho.html).
The investigation of the military command appears to have been an attempt to scapegoat the military for the need in the first place to carry out the failed counteroffensive, a warning shot over the bow of prospective military political or coup plotters, and a caution to Zalyuzhniy about any presidential ambitions he might have. It came as Western media, clearly at government officials’ urging began promoting Zalyuzhniy as Ukraine’s national hero and a possible alternative to Zelenskiy in any 2024 presidential elections and as rumors began circulating that Zalyuzhniy might indeed run. It should be noted that the same tactic is being used against another of Zelenskiy’s prospective presidential rivals, Kiev Mayor Vitaliy Klichko. He has stated publicly that Zelensky is initiating police searches of his political rivals and possible presidential candidates. Klichko is currently under investigation for alleged corruption, while Zelenskiy’s money laundering from criminal oligarch Ihor Kolomoiskii has been left unexamined. When asked recently whether he intended to run for president, Kiev’s mayor responded: “Such questions are often asked to me. And then Vladimir Aleksandrovich Zelensky starts to get nervous, and then secret police searches (obyski) begin against me or other people” (https://t.me/rezident_ua/18745). It is, therefore, no surprise, that Klichko has come out in support of Zalyuzhniy in his growing conflict with Zelenskiy over the course and strategy of the war (https://strana.news/news/451967-klichko-zajavil-chto-zaluzhnyj-skazal-pravdu-o-patovoj-situatsii-na-fronte.html).
The civilian-military schism is not only occurring at the apex of the system but in the middle ranks on the battlefield as well. In late October, the shattering Time magazine expose` on Zelenskiy’s delusional state and the discontent in the military and OP reported that “some commanders” in the Ukrainian army are refusing to carry out Zelenskiy’s orders or, as Time softened it, “second-guessing orders from the top” and specifically refused to carry out a counteroffensive operation against Gorlivko (Simon Shuster, ‘Nobody Believes in Our Victory Like I Do.’ Inside Volodymyr Zelensky’s Struggle to Keep Ukraine in the Fight”, Time.com, https://time.com/6329188/ukraine-volodymyr-zelensky-interview/). A week ago, several unsuccessful efforts were made to storm Russian-held Gorlivko.
Maidan Meltdown
The likelihood that some among the professional military would undertake a coup attempt against Zelenskiy would increase significantly if the coup plotters were able to find support both in the US and within Ukrainian society and Zelenskiy’s own inner circle. One of the fundamental pillars of Zelenskiy’s power at home was his international cache`. That is gone now with the counteroffensive’s failure and growing reports of corruption and division in Kiev. This is true even with the US, Ukraine’s lead backer. As Time’s October expose` on Zelenskiy’s degradation noted, during his September DC trip “Congressional leaders declined to let Zelensky deliver a public address on Capitol Hill. His aides tried to arrange an in-person appearance for him on Fox News and an interview with Oprah Winfrey. Neither one came through” (https://time.com/6329188/ukraine-volodymyr-zelensky-interview/). The precipitous and catastrophic decline in support for Zelenskiy is translating into declining US and other Western governments’ support for Ukraine (and vice versa) and is reflected in the decreasing US military and financial aide packages and in warnings that Western governments have reached the bottom of the barrel. Poland has all but abandoned Ukraine. Slovakia and, so it appears, the Netherlands are following suit. With Hungary’s opposition to Ukraine’s continuation of the war, the arc of NATO hawks in eastern Europe is being broken. There are rumors in former US intelligence circles that the US is preparing to dump Zelenskiy if he continues to refuse to negotiate with Moscow by next year. Ukraine’s and Zelenskiy’s international position further tanked on October 7th when Hamas carried out a horrendous terroristic attack provoking an equally if not more horrendous Israeli attack on Gaza, producing some 14,000 civilian deaths as of writing and risking a regional even world war. Thus, Ukraine funding has lost even more support in the US Congress and most of its previous level of US assistance and has almost completely disappeared from US media headlines. This will make the situation at the front even worse for Kiev and thus place Zelenskiy between two flames: demands that he negotiate with Putin and threats coming from ultranationalist and neofascist elements in society and the army that if he does, then he ought to be overthrown or worse.
Most propitious for support of any military coup are growing signs of division within Zelenskiy’s own camp. The Time article revealed that some high-ranking officials in the OP regard Zelenskiy with a mounting degree of disrespect, describing him as “delusional”: “’He deludes himself,’ one of his closest aides tells me in frustration. ‘We’re out of options. We’re not winning. But try telling him that.’” “Zelensky’s stubbornness, some of his aides say, has hurt their team’s efforts to come up with a new strategy, a new message. As they have debated the future of the war, one issue has remained taboo: the possibility of negotiating a peace deal with the Russians” (https://time.com/6329188/ukraine-volodymyr-zelensky-interview/).
At home the Time article provoked stormy discussion and outrage both in society and the establishment, as one newspaper put it. Perhaps most importantly it sparked questions within the OP and Ukrainian elite regarding who might have been the author’s sources and why they decided to undermine Zelenskiy and the country so openly. Secretary of Ukraine’s powerful Defense and Security Council, Oleksiy Danilov, also condemned the sources who spoke to Time and called for their unmasking and punishment (https://gordonua.com/news/war/danilov-o-state-v-time-orhany-dolzhny-dat-otvet-chto-zhe-eto-za-anonimy-kotorye-ne-verjat-v-pobedu-a-nakhodjatsja-rjadom-s-prezidentom-1686383.html). The article was one more drop in the bucket of internal fractiousness soon to spill over into open confrontation (https://strana.news/articles/analysis/449379-kak-statja-o-zelenskom-v-zhurnale-time-vyzvala-spory-v-ukraine-o-vojne-i-budushchem-vlasti.html). Strana.ua noted the “outrageous” case of Ukrainian commanders refusing Zelenskiy’s order to move on Gorlivka (https://strana.news/news/449308-problemy-mezhdu-voennymi-i-prezidentom-nakaljajutsja-smi.html).
Regarding society, the IRI public opinion survey noted above does not demonstrate only the military’s greater and more durable popularity among Ukrainians. It also registers a significant drop in support for Zelenskiy by September compared with 17 months earlier. In April 2022, 74 percent absolutely approved of his activity, 20 percent mostly approved, 3 percent mostly disapproved, and 2 percent absolutely disapproved. In February 2023, 58 percent absolutely approved of his activity, 33 percent mostly approved, 4 percent mostly disapproved, and 3 percent absolutely disapproved. By September 2023, 42 percent absolutely approved of his activity, 40 percent mostly approved, 9 percent mostly disapproved, and 7 percent absolutely disapproved (https://iri.org.ua/sites/default/files/editor-files/FINAL-UKR-23-NS-02-UKR%20for%20public.pdf, p. 42). Crucially, this survey was conducted before the failure of the counteroffensive became clear even in Ukraine, Washington, and NATO and before civili-military and Zelenskiy-Zalyuzhniy’s relations became openly conflictual. Zelenskiy’s Maidan regime is becoming highly nervous. In October, as if to assure itself, the OP reportedly conducted and apparently leaked the results of an internal poll that supposedly found that the majority of Ukrainians blamed Zalyuzhniy rather than Zelenskiy for the summer counteroffensive’s failure. But it also concluded that an atmosphere was being created by social web and Telegram channels, which nurture the alternative view that Zelenskiy is responsible for the failures while the military command is responsible for any successes (https://t.me/rezident_ua/19945).
Military- or Palace-Led Coup: On the Brink?
In the Time expose`, its author conjectured that the consequence of the Zelenskiy-Zalyuzhniy disagreements may be the resignation by winter of a certain top commander of Ukraine, marking clear evidence of the aggravation of the “OP – military” line (https://time.com/6329188/ukraine-volodymyr-zelensky-interview/). Indeed, matters began to look increasingly like a pre-coup situation in the following days and weeks. The day after the Time publication Gen. Zalyuzhniy gave an interview to The Economist linked to a paper he had written, published on Nov 1st, in which he outlined his view that the war had reached a “stalemate” and “positional crisis”, fully contradicting Zelenskiy’s untiring efforts to ‘put lipstick on a pig’ (https://infographics.economist.com/2023/ExternalContent/ZALUZHNYI_FULL_VERSION.pdf, p. 2). In his paper, Zalyuzhnyi emphasized that this positional crisis favors Russia: “(T)he prolongation of a war, as a rule, in most cases, is beneficial to one of the parties to the conflict. In our particular case, it is the russian federation (Zaluzhniy repeatedly referenced Russia without capital lettering), as it gives it the opportunity to reconstitute and build up its military power” (https://infographics.economist.com/2023/ExternalContent/ZALUZHNYI_FULL_VERSION.pdf, p. 1). He warned that prolongation of this positional war “carries significant risks for both the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the state as a whole” (https://infographics.economist.com/2023/ExternalContent/ZALUZHNYI_FULL_VERSION.pdf, p. 9). Zalyuzhniy’s claim of a stalemate in the war and the poor prospects for Ukraine’s army relative to Russia’s forces cannot but send a shock wave through Ukraine’s body politic no less powerful than that imparted by the Time expose` and perhaps rally opposition figures to Zalyuzhniy’s side (For example, see banned opposition journalist and party leader Anatoliy Shariy’s video at www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzAj49v37Vk&ab_channel=%D0%90%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%B9%D0%A8%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%B9); see also https://t.me/stranaua/130031). The day after Zalyuzhniy’s article appeared on the Internet, Zelenskiy criticized his top commander’s view that the war had reached a stalemate in an unprecedented display of division of disparate views from the civilian and military leaderships. Zelenskiy’s top foreign affairs adviser went further, saying Zaluzhniy’s remarks had been “very strange” and could benefit Russia in the psychological informational war so central to the Zelenskiy team’s approach to governing (www.nytimes.com/2023/11/04/world/europe/zelensky-rebuke-general-zaluzhny.html). This statement approached an accusation of treason. In the Ukrainian context of war, collusion fears, and frequent accusations of and legislation regarding collaboration and treason, getting close to this is a very risky proposition for both sides in the growing intra-Ukrainian struggle.
On November 3rd, two days after Zalyuzhniy’s piece was published, Zelensky’s office removed from his post a Zalyuzhniy deputy, Gen. Viktor Khorenko, who headed Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces (SSO), and did so without consulting with Zalyuzhniy. Khorenko acknowledged there had been differences of opinion between him and the OP but said he did not know why he had been dismissed and only heard about it through media (https://strana.news/news/449677-chto-izvestno-ob-otstavke-viktora-khorenko.html). In response to Khorenko’s rude removal, a video was published apparently by the SSO which advanced “seven theses of Khorenko” and reflected SSO dissatisfaction with Khorenko’s departure. Among the theses were: troops are not commanded from offices, command of forces should be carried out only by those who have killed someone (presumably in battle), and Khorenko “does not play politics” (https://t.me/stranaua/130304). This was a somewhat classic statement of the corporate nature of the military profession and of the divide that exists between the civilian and military, even between ‘armchair’ and combat officers. One would not be judged hasty if one concluded that this seemed to be a rebuke of, even threat against Zelenskiy. These tensions produced churning rumors in Ukrainian and Western media about civil-military and Zelenskiy-Zalyuzhniy tensions (https://ctrana.news/news/449725-itohi-620-dnja-vojny-v-ukraine.html).
All this persuaded the already embattled Ukrainian president to announce on November 6th that Kiev would not hold the presidential election scheduled for March 2024. Discussions of elections were “utterly irresponsible” during wartime, Zelenskiy said. The country is under martial law, and with thousands of soldiers at the front and millions of Ukrainians displaced at home and abroad by the war holding a fair election would be impossible, he stated (www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/zelensky-refuses-to-hold-elections-in-wartime-ukraine/ar-AA1jwJcM). But more fundamentally, Zelenskiy has rejected elections not so much because they are impractical to hold in a war-torn country but because he has isolated himself from the rest of the polity — including Zalyuzhniy, Poroshenko, Klichko, much of the military and civilian apparatus, even many in his administration – and he now is losing popular approval. This decision, requiring a sidelining of pluralism, and the growing schisms with the military prompted Zelenskiy to call for unity and put an end to the mutual recriminations and factionalism on November 7th (www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraines-zelenskiy-irresponsible-talk-holding-elections-wartime-2023-11-06/).
But civil-military matters deteriorated yet further when on the same day that Zelenskiy cancelled the presidential election, one of Zalyuzhniy’s top aides, Col. Gennadi Chastyakov, was apparently assassinated by the explosion of a hand grenade packaged as a gift he received at his home on his birthday. Members of former president Poroshenko’s party immediately cast doubt on the official version of Chastyakov’s death as an accident and connected it with the Zelenskiy-Zalyuzhniy tensions (https://strana.news/news/449870-itohi-622-dnja-vojny.html). Whether the incident was an assassination or an accident for now remains of limited significance. Either way, this has raised the temperature of civil-military and Zelsnkiy-Zalyuzhniy relations, since many inside and outside Ukraine perceive it as an assassination attempt. Some even see it as one perpetrated by allies of Zelenskiy, if not ordered by Zelenskiy himself.
With the southern Donetsk town of Avdiivka in a similar situation as Bakhmut before the fall, surrounded and seeing high numbers of Ukrainian (and Russian) casualties, it is certain that similar disagreements are occurring between civilian and military officials, between Zelenskiy and Zalyuzhni over whether to stand and defend or withdraw and save human and material resources, driving tensions upward.
Tensions continued to mount through the rest of November, as can be seen if we read between the lines of events. On the 11th of November, the Washington Post published another article intended to muddy the waters surrounding the 2022, likely US attack on the Nord Stream pipeline by attributing it to Ukraine. This time, however, instead of whitewashing the entire Ukrainian leadership by pointing to some ‘pro-Ukrainian group’ as the perpetrator, it identified as the Nord Stream attack’s “coordinator” an imprisoned Ukrainian military officer who has extremely antagonistic relations with Zelenskiy’s office for his alleged bungling of the 2019 Ukrainian special operation to intercept Wagner fighters in Belarus. Furthermore, the Post fingered Zalyuzhniy by conjecturing that all the evidence points to him as the mastermind of the project (www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/11/11/nordstream-bombing-ukraine-chervinsky/). It cannot be excluded that this was a joint CIA-Ukrainian disinformation operation, with the Kievans producing the alleged Nord Stream ‘coordinator.’ In terms of the Western position towards the Ukrainian president and general, it is hard to determine whether the article – likely planted by US intelligence – was an effort to scapegoat or credit Zalyuzhnyi, but it certainly could polarize their already tense relations. On the same day the Post article appeared former commander of the defense of Mikolaev, Gen.-Col. Dmitriy Marchenko supported the idea of Zalyuzhnyi running for president, saying he gladly would join his political team. The statement was made on Poroshenko-controlled Channel 5 (https://strana.news/news/450289-itohi-627-dnja-vojny-v-ukraine.html). On November 19th Zelenskiy released Zalyuzhniy ally, Tatyana Ostashchenko, as head of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Medical Services. Zelenskiy appears to be depopulating the Zalyuzhniy patronage clan from positions of power perhaps in order to limit the potential for a military coup or other means for opposing Zelenskiy’s clan.
[[On November 24th, Zelenskiy fired four deputy commanders of the National Guard of Ukraine (NGU), which is the home of many from the ultranationalist and neofascist battalions created ‘from below’ at the start of Kiev’s ‘anti-terrorist operation’ in April 2014 and are now subordinated to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. He appointed three to replace them (www.pravda.com.ua/rus/news/2023/11/24/7430272/). The NGU’s commander was replaced in July. (https://strana.news/news/451312-ukazy-zelenskoho-ob-uvolnenijakh-i-naznachenijakh-zamov-komandujushcheho-natshvardiej.html). Just a week before firing the NGU deputy commanders, he fired the head of Ukraine’s foreign intelligence service or SVR (https://strana.news/news/450761-aleksandr-tarasovskij-zelenskij-uvolil-zama-predsedatelja-sluzhby-vneshnej-razvedki.html). All these personnel changes across the siloviki departments could very well represent nervousness and an attempt to keep these institutions so off balance that they cannot decide on participating or organize against Zelenskiy.]]
[[In a November 25th interview the head of the parliamentary majority group of deputies in the Rada from Zelenskiy’s party ‘Servants of the People’ and head of the Ukrainian delegation of negotiators in Gomel and Istanbul that concluded a preliminary agreement on a peace agreement initialed by Putin and Zelenskiy, David Arakhamiya gave away the store regarding the war decision-making. He effectively has confirmed conclusively what then Israel PМ Naftali Bennet, the former Turkish foreign minister, former chancellor of Germany Gerhard Schroeder, and Ukrainian reporting have long indicated: Ukraine was ready to sign the agreement with reservations about the Russians’ trustworthiness, but UK PM Boris Johnson’s surprise vist to Kiev and demand that Ukraine not sign any agreement with Moscow scuttled the agreement. The interview also conclusively shows that NATO expansion was the war’s cause, as Arakhamiya disclosed that the Russians’ main demand in fact was Ukrainian neutrality and all other demands were a formality for appearances’ sake (https://1plus1.ua/mosejcuk/videos/1-sezon/mosejcuk-david-arahamia-podrobici-peremovini-iz-rosianami-u-bilorusi-u-2022-roci; www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_ughfLpMfQ&ab_channel=%D0%A0%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B0-%D0%A1%D0%A1%D0%A1%D0%A0 and www.pravda.com.ua/rus/news/2023/11/24/7430282/). This undermines Zelenskiy’s (and the Western) narrative that Putin is a territory hungry totalitarian imperialist and terrorist and that the Kremlin had specific defensive-security goals for its decision to invade in February 2022. For our analysis this disclosure raises more important points. It raises grave questions as to why Zelenskiy and his circle lacked the courage, wisdom, and statesmanship to choose peace over war for the sake of their countrymen. It is likely to increase resent,ent of the West in that some, as one paper has suggested, raise suspicions that the West effectively forced Zelenskiy to accept war not by the blandishments of weapons so much as the threat that the West would refuse to sign any agreement with Russia regarding the provision of security guarantees for Kiev, which would have made any Ukrainian agreement with Moscow far mor risky and thus more difficult to garner support among Ukrainians (https://strana.news/news/451345-zhuravl-po-imeni-dzhonson-pochemu-ukraina-otkazalas-ot-sohlashenija-s-rossiej-vesnoj-2022-hoda.html). The disclosure also reveals that there is indeed a split within the Zelenskiy camp despite Arakhamiya’s claim to the contrary. He in fact contradicted this claim in the interview when he said that if any treaty were to be agreed upon with Moscow, it would have to be submitted to a referendum before ratification by the Rada, since in lieu of the people’s voice the deputies would be at each others’ throats (https://1plus1.ua/mosejcuk/videos/1-sezon/mosejcuk-david-arahamia-podrobici-peremovini-iz-rosianami-u-bilorusi-u-2022-roci and https://strana.news/news/451315-vsjo-rukovodstvo-ukrainy-vystupaet-za-prodolzhenie-vojny-david-arakhamija.html). This reveals the true state of affairs within the Maidan regime: growing division driven by intensifying desperation.]]
[[On November 26th, Rada deputies from Zelenskiy’s Servants of the People party, including Rada Defense and Security Committee Deputy Chair Maryana Bezhulaya, called for the resignation of Gen. Zalyuzhniy and the top military command. They charged the former with failing to submit a military plan for 2024. One deputy complained that the only plan seems to be to mobilize an additional 20,000 bodies to fight according to the present, presumably in the deputy’s eyes, failed scenario, she called on the military leadership to resign (https://strana.news/news/451402-itohi-641-dnja-vojny-v-ukraine.html and https://strana.news/news/451432-valerij-zaluzhnyj-dolzhen-ujti-v-otstavku-marjana-bezuhlaja.html).]]
[[On November 27th Ukraine Security and Defence Council Secretary Danilov announced ostensible intelligence indicated that the Kremlin had activated a network of “sleeper” spies inside Ukraine’s state institutions, including the SBU. Russian agents were said to be assigned “to drive a wedge between the political and military leadership of Ukraine as well as to incite anti-government sentiment among the population” (https://strana.news/news/451456-chto-proiskhodit-v-ukraine-27-nojabrja-2023-hoda-onlajn-svodka-novosti-dnja.html). Putting aside the fact that there may be Russian agents inside Ukraine’s state apparatus, the surprising public declaration seemed out of place and was either an attempt to cover for the rising civil-military and socio-political tensions surrounding the collapsing front and/or possible preparation for charging some with collusion and collaboration with Putin’s agents.]]
Zelenskiy’s weakening hand abroad is having profound perhaps fateful domestic political implications, particularly for civil-military relations. It is no accident that the Zelenskiy-Zalyuzhniy tensions have intensified, as the West begins to throw Kiev under the bus. Moreover, the US and Europeans reportedly are pressuring Zelenskiy now to negotiate with Putin (www.nbcnews.com/news/world/us-european-officials-broach-topic-peace-negotiations-ukraine-sources-rcna123628). Zelenskiy is being placed between two flames, facing the potential of a coup from two positions on the war. One front would be composed of those who support negotiations to save Ukraine; a second would be those who oppose talks with the Russian at any cost. The former consists of the ultra-patriotic, ultranationalist and neofascist military and other elements, who will persist in rejecting compromise with ‘f…… terrorist Putin’, as Zelenskiy referred to the Russian president in a NBC interview on November 5th. The latter is composed of those who understand that to salvage Ukrainian statehood requires a ceasefire, if not full peace, and a compromise at least on NATO membership and already Russia-annexed territories. In other words, Zelenskiy could already be damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t negotiate with Putin. Another motivation to undertake a coup could be Zelenskiy’s psychological ‘delusional’ decay affecting his competence and/or the collapse of the military at the front or social institutions in the rear bringing angry soldiers back to Kiev and mixing with disenchanted elements in society.
Ukraine’s ultra-nationalists and neo-fascists almost unanimously will reject any talk of peace negotiations with Russia as nothing less than capitulation and treason and will be highly motivated to attempt another coup like Maidan or go underground and fight against the ‘regime of traitors and Putin puppets.’ Some ultras and neo-fascists would certainly support a coup undertaken by military commanders perhaps pursuing Zelenskiy’s removal for reasons other than any decision of his to negotiate or continue to refuse to negotiate with Putin. Many in the military are ultra-nationalists and neo-fascists, even the top command. Zalyuzhniy appointed neofascist Right Sector founder Dmitro Yarosh as an advisor and has posed for photographs in his office revealing a portrait of Stepan Bandera on the wall behind his desk.
Another key element in any decision to undertake a military or palace coup would be the cover, if not direct participation of Ukraine’s intelligence services. The SBU is headed by Vasyl Maslyuk, who is not a close associate of Zelenskiy, who has been forced to fire SBU officials before, as noted above. The SBU is corrupt in numerous ways and has tended to play its own political game, for example, by supporting radical ultranationalist and neofascist elements. Another secret service pillar that could expose, support, or stand idly by a coup plot is the Main Directorate of Intelligence (GUR), Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, headed by the hubristic, daring, and brash young General Kyrylo Budanov. One observer has argued that of there is a coup threat against Zelenskiy on the horizon, it comes from Budanov (https://asiatimes.com/2023/11/zelensky-is-at-war-with-his-generals/). One might add that Khorenko, the Zalyuzhniy deputy recently fired so ignominiously, is another candidate to participate, even lead a coup attemot. He was transferred to the GUR, creating a connection between Zalyuzhniy and Budanov (https://24tv.ua/ru/horenko-uznal-o-svoem-uvolnenii-iz-smi-predstavlenie-zaluzhnyj-ne-delal_n2425155). Budanov would not be able to carry out any coup without the military, and Zalyuzhniy’s popularity far outstrips any Budanov might have. But Budanov’s support of or passivity during any coup attempt will be important for its success. At least one of the security services, the SBU or GUR, would also have to participate and might even lead a plot. Another potential institutional participant or leader in any armed coup plot would be the aforementioned and no less ideologized National Guard.
There are several scenarios for a coup involving military elements: an outright military coup, military-backed palace coup, a military-backed oligarch-sposnored Maidan 2.0. As I have noted previously, armed elements’ alliance with civilian elements could be especially powerful. A regime split is already under way and civilian elements that might ally with armed elements could include those that support former president Poroshenko, a bitter opponent of Zelenskiy, and/or Kiev mayor Klichko and his UDAR party. As I noted in 2022:
“Poroshenko could be a particularly dangerous opponent, cover for a military leadership. He had good relations with Biden when the latter was US vice president and led Obama’s Ukraine policy and is backed into a corner having been indicted and forced to flee abroad. His supporters remain in country, and Zelenskiy’s thin support and purge of the political landscape has created a plethora of enemies, whom Poroshenko can win over or buy off. An exacerbated Zelenskiy-Poroshenko conflict could draw in General Zalyuzhniy. He has frequent contacts with Washington and Brussels who some day might tire of Zelenskiy as the war drags on. All this becomes a likely explosive dynamic, if the situation at the front continues to deteriorate for Ukraine” (https://gordonhahn.com/2022/07/29/regime-instability-in-kiev/).
Another military-related scenario could be a revolt generated ‘from below’ but perhaps coopted by officers and/or oligarchs. In this scenario rank-and-file soldiers, veterans, and low- and mid-level commanders return from the front by way of being wounded, desertion, or front collapse organize demonstrations and a street revolt perhaps in league with ultra-nationalists or neo-fascists, seeking to complete Maidan with a nationalist revolution or Maidan 2.0. In Late November, Germany’s Bild published an article indicating increasing discontent among rank-an-file Ukrainian soldiers with with Kiev’s generals, government and president Zelenskiy. Generals are reproached for: “lack of foresight;” broken communications between adjacent frontline detachments; insufficient provision for soldiers are voiced to the government; the need for soldiers themselves to pay transport repairs, fuel, drones, spare parts, food, and rent for housing where they are bivouacked. One soldier told the publication: “We are defending our country, risking our lives, and, in the end, we pay for equipment, rent, meals and car repairs ourselves. What happens to all the money coming from abroad? We feel more and more abandoned by the government” (https://strana.news/news/451481-sredi-ukrainskikh-voennykh-rastet-nedovolstvo-smi.html). The continuation of such a state of affairs cannot end well for the Maidan regime.
There is also the possibility of a direct Western intervention in support of a coup plot. Zalyuznyi, Poroshenko, and Klichko each have their own backers in the West. Putin said in a recent comment: “Why do Americans try to fight this corruption [in Ukraine] but nothing works? I do not think it will work. They are now planning a change of elites – both economic and political one” (my emphasis) (http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/72672). Does Putin know something we don’t? Is a US-backed coup in the works? Not quite yet, I would argue.
Of course, not every regime change scenario is necessarily military-oriented, each realistic one is certain to be war-driven and will have to have some military or at least armed support. Given the possibility of economic breakdown and the collapse of Ukraine’s energy grid likely to come under more intensive Russian attack this winter than last, living conditions could become so unbearable that in combination with disaster at the front a popular revolt arises. Zelenskiy himself recently said that any substantial cut off in Western financial aid could make it impossible for Ukraine to support social services and the war effort simultaneously, and this is true given the West is financing almost if not all of Ukraine’s state budget.
Conlcusion
Existentialist war dangers for Ukraine are intensifying the politicization of the military and exacerbating civil-military relations – a precondition for a military or palace coup supported by the military. An alliance of Ukrainian opposition elements with any military opposition –particularly if it includes the neofascist element in society and the military — can pose a grave threat to Zelenskiy’s regime. Again as I wrote in 2022:
“Add into this mix the pro-Russian factor (in the broad sense that encompasses pro-Russian language sentiment, Russian ethnic claims to a right to live in and shape Ukraine, as well as pro-Russia sentiment), invigorated by the arrest of the pro-Russian Opposition Bloc leader Viktor Medvedchuk…Then mix in the neofascists’ separate game of national revolution and their anger over the death and capture of the core of the neofascist Azov Battalion and continuing battlefield losses in general. Arestovich alluded consciously or unconsciously to this neofascist revolutionary threat, when he noted in May the “not so clever narrative: ‘heroes in the battlefield against traitors in the Office (of the President) and fat, dense generals in the staffs’” (https://strana.news/articles/390297-ukrainskaja-oppozitsija-obvinjaet-ofis-prezidenta-v-dopushchenii-okkupatsii-territorij-ukrainy.html).
“…A freezing, hungry nation losing a war will be inclined to blame Zelenskiy and the ‘democratic’ Maidan regime and to follow less than desirable leaders. They will susceptible to demagogues, and Ukraine’s all too numerous neo-fascists could fit the bill. The latter are now even better-armed than they were before the war and are praised at home and in the West as heroes who defended Azovstal, Mariupol, Kiev, and Kharkiv. The Ukrainian Volunteer Army of Ukraine’s neofascist Right Sector (the former commanded and the latter founded by advisor to Zalyuzhniy, Dmitro Yarosh), the National Corps (led by founder of Azov, the neofascist Andriy Biletskiy), and other ultranationalist and neofascist groups continue to sacrifice themselves at the front in sharp contrast to those sipping coffee in Kiev and doing photo shoots in glossy Western magazines for women, as the Zelenskiys (have).
“There is significant evidence that the Russo-Ukrainian war is destabilizing the hybrid republican-oligarchic-ultranationalist Maidan regime–one riven by political, ideological, and oligarchic factionalism from the start. Below the apex of the Maidan’s quasi-republican regime headed by a thinly popular frontman lurks malign forces of oligarchic corruption and criminality and of radical nationalism and neofascism. The war temporarily papered over the ruling groups’ internal divisions, uniting them despite their multifarious interests, goals, and conflicts. However, over time the war and slow-moving rout of the Ukrainian military will wear away the thin coat of plaster uniting these groups in their fight against the Russians. At the same time, corruption, criminality, and multi-nationality in Ukraine make the Maidan regime susceptible to infiltration by the Russian state. Moreover, the war along with limited commitment to republican government within the Ukrainian elite are exacerbating the country’s conflictive environment and political culture. Being comprised of competing and increasingly violent oligarchic and ultranationalist clans, Ukrainian culture will be increasingly likely to yield growing intra-national violence and political upheaval. This trend will intensify with particular vigor if or when the war becomes clearly lost and the West begins to abandon the Ukrainian cause or desperately attempt to salvage it through a decisive political intervention such as a coup. Numerous coup or revolutionary scenarios are now part of the picture, and one should be prepared for such contingencies.
“(t)here is the real risk of a repeat of the country’s collapse through coup or revolution into warring factions as occurred post-1917. In this case, regions could devolve to the control of modern warlords representing these various trends backed by oligarch and various interested outside parties” (https://gordonhahn.com/2022/07/29/regime-instability-in-kiev/).
There is no guarantee that the military will retain its unity in any coup. Already challenged in its south and east by its ‘stateness’ problem of pro-Russian separatism and allegiance to Moscow among ethnic Russians and ethnically mixed and Soviet nostalgic russophones, Ukraine’s pre-war weak state is already threatening to become a failed one during or after the war. A coup is likely to deepen divisions within Kiev and the rest of what remains of Ukraine, provoking perhaps Ukrainian separatism, regional warlords, and mutually antagonistic partisan armies. This disastrous outcome for both Europe and Russia could occur on the road to or in the wake of defeat and as a result of defeat on the battlefield or by the nature of the post-war peace settlement.
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NEW BOOK
EUROPE BOOKS, 2022
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RECENT BOOKS
MCFARLAND BOOKS, 2021
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MCFARLAND BOOKS, 2018
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About the Author –
Gordon M. Hahn, Ph.D., is an Expert Analyst at Corr Analytics, www.canalyt.com. Websites: Russian and Eurasian Politics, gordonhahn.com and gordonhahn.academia.edu
Dr. Hahn is the author of the new book: Russian Tselostnost’: Wholeness in Russian Thought, Culture, History, and Politics (Europe Books, 2022). He has authored five previous, well-received books: The Russian Dilemma: Security, Vigilance, and Relations with the West from Ivan III to Putin (McFarland, 2021); Ukraine Over the Edge: Russia, the West, and the “New Cold War” (McFarland, 2018); The Caucasus Emirate Mujahedin: Global Jihadism in Russia’s North Caucasus and Beyond (McFarland, 2014), Russia’s Islamic Threat (Yale University Press, 2007), and Russia’s Revolution From Above: Reform, Transition and Revolution in the Fall of the Soviet Communist Regime, 1985-2000 (Transaction, 2002). He also has published numerous think tank reports, academic articles, analyses, and commentaries in both English and Russian language media.
Dr. Hahn taught at Boston, American, Stanford, San Jose State, and San Francisco State Universities and as a Fulbright Scholar at Saint Petersburg State University, Russia and was a senior associate and visiting fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Kennan Institute in Washington DC, the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and the Center for Terrorism and Intelligence Studies (CETIS), Akribis Group.