As of: January 30, 2024, 3:47 p.m
By: Alexandra Heidsiek
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Press
Split
General Valeriy Saluschnyj (2nd from left) is considered popular among his soldiers and the people.
The relationship with President Volodymyr Zelensky no longer seems to be the best.
© afp
The rumor mill is churning in Ukraine.
President Zelensky is said to have fired Commander-in-Chief Saluzhny.
The denial follows promptly.
Kiev - Excitement in Ukraine: On the evening of January 29th, the
Interfax
news agency reported that President Volodymyr Zelensky had fired the popular commander-in-chief Valery Zalushnyj.
The supreme commander of the armed forces made a name for himself with his achievements in the 2022 Ukraine War.
Recently, however, dissatisfaction over the failed summer offensive has increased.
The Ukrainian Defense Ministry said briefly and succinctly on Telegram: “Dear journalists, we answer everyone at the same time: It is not true.” The presidential press spokesman, Serhiy Nykyforov, also denied the rumors.
Several sources from the independent Russian news portal
Medusa
confirmed that the information was false and that there were no imminent layoffs.
Neither Zelensky nor Saluschnyj have commented on this yet.
Valeriy Saluschnyj does not necessarily present himself to the public as a distant military commander
Saluzhny was appointed to his post a few months before the start of the Ukraine war.
With his successes on the front, the commander-in-chief is popular among the population and the army and is a symbol of resistance against Russia for many Ukrainians.
According to data from the Sociology Institute in Kiev, his approval ratings currently even exceed those of the president.
Although he distances himself from political ambitions, the relationship between Zalushnyj and the Ukrainian president has long been considered tense - probably also because the commander-in-chief could become Zelenskyj's political competitor.
Is the argument between Zelensky and Zalushny real or staged?
In November 2023, a deputy from the presidential Servant of the People party, Marjana Besuhla, called for Saluschnyj's resignation because he was going into the new year too haphazardly.
Mobilization is also a real point of contention: Zelensky does not want to grant Saluschny's request to increase the size of the army.
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The presidential staff and military leadership also disagree about how successful the fighting is.
The war is at a stalemate, Saluzhnyj stated a few months ago in an essay for the British magazine
Economist
.
The current British secret service dossiers also share this assessment.
Zelensky, on the other hand, distances himself from such statements.
In a conversation with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, he said clearly: “There is no stalemate.”
Journalist Denis Trubetskoy believes that “a personnel decision could be possible in the medium term” and that there are “different arguments for and against.”
Overall, it remains to be hoped that all sides will still agree on constructive cooperation.
“But I do not rule out the possibility that a change in personnel is considered inevitable for reasons that are not entirely unreasonable,” wrote Trubetskoy on the online platform X.
(ah)