Former Ukrainian commander-in-chief and current London ambassador, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, will reportedly quit his job and return to Kyiv in January in time for possible presidential elections, , NV.ua reports.

A peace deal to end the war in Ukraine came a little closer following the Mar-a-Lago meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and US president Donald Trump on December 28. Trump said a deal was “very close” but negotiations remain stuck on the key issues of land and security guarantees. Working groups from the US and Ukraine are now talking to their Russian counterparts to find workable compromises to try and close the deal.

If a deal is struck then part of the 27-point plan worked out during the Moscow meeting with president Vladimir Putin on December 3 includes calling presidential elections.

Zelenskiy has confirmed that he is ready to hold fresh elections as part of the peace process, repeating in Mar-a-Lago that if there is a need to hold a referendum on the issue of ceding territory to Russia then a presidential election could be run concurrently.

As bne IntelliNews reported, if elections were held today, Zelenskiy would likely lose to Zaluzhnyi in a second round, who currently tops the polls as Ukraine’s most popular politician. Zelenskiy would also lose to Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, if Zaluzhnyi did not stand for election.

Zelenskiy’s credibility has been hurt by a string of PR disasters. He has been criticized for increasing authoritarian tendencies as he draws more levers of power into his own hands. That backfired when he attempted to gut Ukraine’s anti-corruption reforms in July by ramming through law 21414 that would have transferred control over Ukraine’s leading anti-corruption organs – the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) – and making them answerable to the president’s office. That decision sparked the first anti-government protests since the war began in 2022.

The expanding Energoatom corruption scandal implicated Zelenskiy when his close personal friend and former business partner, Timur Mindich, was named by NABU as at the centre of a $100mn kickback scheme. Mindich was tipped off and fled the country for Israel before he could be arrested. Zelenskiy has sanctioned Mindich, but no arrest warrant has been issued.

Zelenskiy has taken a second blow after NABU revealed a second vote-selling corruption scheme amongst senior deputies from the president’s Servant of the People (SOTP) party the day before the Mar-a-Lago meeting began. Four senior deputies are being questioned in what NABU has called a “criminal group” operating inside the parliament and a fifth suspect Yuriy Koryavchenkov, another personal friend of Zelenskiy’s, was also tipped off and reportedly fled the country just before NABU officers raided his home and offices in the government quarter in Kyiv.

Zaluzhnyi has said nothing in public about his plans or a possible presidential run. The former head of the presidential office Andrii Yermak approached the general several times trying to persuade him to join the ruling SOTP party. Zaluzhnyi refused, preferring to keep his distance from Zelenskiy who sacked him as commander in chief in February 2024 when he became too outspoken and politically popular in 2024.

He was shunted off to London a month later as ambassador where he has been relatively quiet, but has given some interviews where he offered mild rebukes to Zelenskiy war strategy, that were seen as his positioning himself on post-war plans rather than challenging Bankova directly. Zaluzhnyi reportedly also told Yermak that he would not openly criticise Zelenskiy as long as the war continued.

Since then NV.ua reported that Zelenskiy also offered Zaluzhnyi the jobs of Prime Minister and head of the presidential administration – both jobs Zaluzhnyi refused.

Zaluzhnyi’s decision to step down as ambassador and return to Ukraine without a specific role has been taken by Ukraine watchers as a sign that he will almost certainly stand for election should a ceasefire be concluded.