Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered almost two years ago (on February 24, 2022)
the first military aggression by one European country against another since World War II
(the Balkan Wars were the dismantling of Yugoslavia in a civil war) And waiting in Kiev was a president who had recently come to power on a wave of anti-corruption fatigue, with almost no political experience and who had become famous as a comedian and actor.
Volodimir Zelensky dressed in khaki and set about traveling the world to get the money, weapons and ammunition that Ukraine did not have to confront Russia.
And he left the leadership of the war to General Valeri Zaluzhny, the man who for two years had been preparing for a Russian attack, who had modernized methods, strategies and structures of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and who maintained close contacts with his European counterparts and Americans.
Two years and tens of thousands of deaths later,
Ukraine knew how to stop what in the first days seemed like it was going to be a Russian military parade.
Smoke and destruction in a building in Kharkiv, Ukraine, following an attack by Russia in January.
Photo: REUTERS
It lost territories in the southeast, where Russia is well established, and important cities such as Mariupol after fierce resistance, but it did not fall into the hands of the Kremlin autocrat.
From Ukraine the idea is sold that Zelensky has not changed, that he is still the president of the people, who consults and cares.
But the former comedian
did change
and when his country was experiencing military moments of doubt about the latest Russian advances, the president took control of the direction of the war by dismissing the military officer Zaluzhny.
Zelensky now has more to say about the military leadership and
has been turning toward a tougher man
, at home and abroad.
European diplomats say that they have the impression of being in the presence of someone who is more determined and at the same time less confident because he trusts fewer people.
Diplomat, spokesperson and military leader
Zelensky is now everything: the diplomat, the communicator and the military leader.
Members of his government are becoming less visible and Zaluzhny's ouster sends
a powerful signal
.
The general was seen as a potential political rival in the future and was one of the few people who had approval ratings among the population higher than those of the president, who maintains a
high popularity
higher than that of his ministers.
Volodimir Zelensky and Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the military chief dismissed weeks ago.
Photo: EFE
When Russia invaded, Zelensky repeated several times that it was the generals who were running the war and that he trusted them.
He now personally supervises military plans and moves the generals.
Zaluzhny was replaced by General Oleksander Syrsky, a man who has played an essential role during these two years of war but who does not have Zaluzhny's aura and who is unknown to the entire population.
If military strategy should change little, politics does change a lot because now Zelensky, by getting involved in the conduct of the war, personally assumes the success or failure of military operations.
Zelensky seems to want that military role, not just the political one.
His presence on the front has increased
and he even walks a few kilometers from where the Russian troops are.
The president seems to have aged five years in two years and European sources speak of a tired man, although willing to continue leading the resistance to the Russian attack.
His priority now is to convince his European partners to send him everything they have on hand because the Ukrainians are defending their territory with fewer military means than the Russian invader.
And they give ground while Russia gains a foothold in Crimea and the Donbas region.
Oleksandr Syrskyi, the new commander of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Photo: EFE
Zelensky
suspended the holding of the presidential elections,
which were due to take place this March.
Martial law, activated, does not allow elections to be held and among refugees (more than four million), internally displaced people and the population under Russian occupation, more than a third of Ukrainians would not be able to vote.
The political opposition supports the president's decisions and practically does not dissent in anything because it is still the moment for national unity and not for criticism.
Zelensky continues with his strategy towards Europe.
If financial support seems secure for the coming years after the approval of a 50 billion euro package, weapons and ammunition are not so clear that they will arrive on time and in the quantities Ukraine needs.
The US Republicans have blocked a $60 billion fund that the Biden Administration had prepared and in Europe there is no military industrial capacity to sustain the Ukrainian war effort.
Polls say that the European population is increasingly pessimistic and that only one in ten believes that Ukraine can win the war, if that means expelling Russian troops from its territory.
If in June, as the polls predict, the extreme right grows and the European Parliament turns to the right, support for Ukraine will become more complicated.
C.B.