Zelenskyy denies rumors of firing Ukraine’s top commander

Semafor Signals

Insights from Ukrainska Pravda, Strana.ua, and The Economist

The News

Both President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office and the Ministry of Defense were forced to deny rumors that Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, was being fired. This followed widespread speculation and local reports Monday that suggested Ukraine’s leader was pushing Zaluzhnyi out. His dismissal would be the most high-profile change in leadership in Kyiv since Russia’s invasion.

Zaluzhnyi, the second most popular public figure in the country after Zelenskyy, told the Economist last November that the war had reached a “stalemate,” bringing tensions between the two men into public view as Zelenskyy reportedly saw him as a growing political threat to his presidency. A presidential spokesperson said at the time that Zaluzhnyi’s comments stirred “panic” among Western allies and eased “the work of the aggressor.”

On Monday, Ukrainian media outlets and foreign correspondents reported that Zelenskyy had told Zaluzhnyi to resign, and that an official announcement could be imminent. Some reports alleged that Zaluzhnyi refused to leave his post as commander-in-chief.

But after public outcry over the popular leader’s possible dismissal, Zelenskyy’s office denied the rumors. “The president did not fire the head of the commission,” his press secretary told a Ukrainian outlet. According to the Financial Times, a decision has been made to replace Zaluzhnyi, but the timing of his departure remains undecided.

SIGNALS

The Zaluzhnyi-Zelenskyy rivalry reaches a boil

The Ukrainian president has long been wary of Zaluzhnyi, the only political figure in Ukraine whose polling numbers come close to Zelenskyy’s. The first signs of disagreement appeared even before the war, when the two men disagreed about the need to prepare seriously for a Russian invasion, leading Zaluzhnyi to hide his defensive preparations from the president, according to Simon Shuster’s biography of Zelenskyy titled .

In the summer of 2022, Zaluzhnyi established his own charitable foundation, which Zelenskyy’s team considered a potential step towards starting a political movement. More recently, the two have quarreled over military strategy and whether to mobilize more soldiers. Zaluzhnyi has said more troops are needed, but attempts at expanding the draft have been politically unpopular. Zelenskyy has also become increasingly involved in military decision-making, creating “parallel channels of communication” with defense officials that have allowed him to sidestep Zaluzhnyi, according to Ukrainska Pravda.

Majority of Ukrainians do not want to see Zaluzhnyi go

Only 2% of Ukrainians support removing Zaluzhnyi, while 72% would view his dismissal “negatively,” according to a poll conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology at the end of last year. The general’s tremendous popularity reflects the key role he played in both ensuring Ukraine survived Russia’s initial invasion and recaptured swathes of Russian-occupied territory in 2022. Zaluzhnyi, who once dreamed of being a comedian, has been credited with pushing the Ukrainian military away from a rigid Soviet-era military doctrine towards a Western military culture where commanders are empowered to make quick decisions on the ground. Gen. Mark Milley, his then-U.S. counterpart in 2022, described Zaluzhnyi as “the military mind his country needed.”

Ukraine’s military spy chief is seen as favorite to replace Zaluzhnyi

Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, is widely considered the most likely commander-in-chief if Zaluzhnyi were to be replaced, according to the Ukrainian news outlet Strana.ua. Budanov has organized a string of daring missions behind Russian lines, and Zelenskyy has long considered him a potential counterweight against Zaluzhnyi’s popularity, The Economist reported last year. Other rumored candidates include the Deputy Commander-in-Chief Yevhen Moisiuk or Oleksandr Syrskyi, the head of Ukraine’s ground forces, a Ukrainian MP in Zelenskyy’s party wrote on Telegram.