Ukraine’s former commander in chief and now ambassador to the UK General Valerii Zaluzhnyi lashed out at the Zelenskiy administration in what appears to be the start of a bid to take over as president.

The well-liked Zaluzhnyi was sacked by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy last year following the failure of the 2023 summer offensive which he described as bringing the war to a stalemate. However, it is widely believed that Zelenskiy removed Zaluzhnyi after he overtook the president in the polls.

Zaluzhnyi took the unusual step of publishing a critical opinion piece in the UK’s Telegraph titled “How to defeat Putin and build a better Ukraine”, as well as posting similar remarks on social media the same day.

The criticism comes at a sensitive time for Zelenskiy, who is embroiled in the largest corruption scandal of his career, after his former business partner Timur Mindich was accused by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) of masterminding a $100mn kick-back scheme at the state-owned utility company Energoatom. Mindich skipped the country only hours before NABU raided his office and home, where a solid gold toilet was discovered as well as packs of hundreds of thousands of euros and dollars.

The corruption scandal has been expanding and claimed the powerful éminence grise of Ukraine on November 28, Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine’s presidential office and Zelenskiy closest advisor.

Yermak resigned after NABU searched his home and office. He has since said he will enlist and go to the frontline. Critics have pointed out that if Yermak enlists the relevant authority in charge of investigating crimes committed by soldiers is the State Bureau of Investigation and technically the investigation by NABU will have to be transferred to the State Bureau of Investigation, which reports to the president. NABU is entirely independent of the government and president and has its own independent Anti-Corruption Court (ACC) to prosecute high officials.

The Zaluzhny attack accused the Zelenskiy’s administration of not being able to define the political goal of Ukraine’s war efforts.

“He goes on to define the goal in even more radical terms than Zelenskiy ever defined it - a full destruction of the “Russian empire”. Also, he conveniently ignores the fact that Ukraine’s political goals had to shift when he failed to deliver a victorious counter-offensive in 2023 as Ukraine’s commander-in-chief,” journalist and bne IntelliNews columnist Leonid Ragozin said in a comment.

“More than anything, the article sells Zaluzhny himself as a leader who - unlike Zelenskiy - understands war and grand political strategy. A clear presidential pitch, Ragozin added.

The wartime trinity

“War cannot be waged effectively without a clear political goal. After all, war is not an end in itself, it is waged for political goals. Russia has long ago defined its goal as the destruction of Ukraine as an independent state,” Zaluzhnyi said in a social media post. “Ukraine's political goal in the Russian-Ukrainian war should be formed on the basis of such challenges. And the basis of such a goal should be to deprive Russia of opportunities for aggression against Ukraine in the foreseeable future.”

In a detailed conversation with the Ukrainian publication Liga.net, Zaluzhnyi gave more details of his objections to Zelenskiy's war strategy.

The philosophical framing of the criticism suggests that Zelenskiy has not understood the nature of war and its political problems, whereas he, Zaluzhnyi, does understand this problem and by implication is better suited to lead the country.

“The political purpose of war is what answers all questions. It is this term that makes it possible to see not only what the enemy is doing, but also how to move forward ourselves. And if, according to the [military analyst] Clausewitz, war is a "trinity": the population, the armed forces and the state administration, then these aspects are three different codes of laws and among these parties, it is the population that is the most sensitive party in terms of supporting the war,” Zaluzhnyi said.

“Without public support, it is impossible to wage a war successfully. Then perhaps the main form of such public support is the attitude of society, first of all, to mobilisation, which quickly began to fail,” Zaluzhnyi added.

Immediately after the Russian invasion, the government imposed martial law and began an aggressive and highly unpopular mandatory conscription drive. Military police officers have been grabbing men from the street and throwing them into buses before they are sent to the frontline.

Zaluzhnyi goes on to argue that Russia has managed to marshal all three elements of Clausewitz’s trinity and is well prepared for a long war should the current peace negations with the US fail. Ukraine, however, continues to suffer from its trinity of problems: the lack of men, money and materiel. More stingingly, Zaluzhnyi accuses Zelenskiy of having no clear political goal in the war.

“War does not always end with the victory of one side and the defeat of the other. We Ukrainians strive for complete victory, but we cannot reject the option of a long-term end to the war. Peace, even in anticipation of the next war, provides a chance for political change, for deep reforms, for full recovery, economic growth and the return of citizens,” Zaluzhnyi said on social media in what appears to be a political agenda for a post-war recovery in Ukraine.

“It is even possible to speak about the beginning of the formation of a safe, protected state through innovation and technology; of strengthening the foundations of justice through the fight against corruption and the creation of an honest court system; and of economic development, including on the basis of international economic recovery programmes,” he added.