Zelenskyy is the problem, not his friends

[Hawkeye10]

Zelenskyy is the problem, not his friends
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has fired leading security officials in the middle of a war. But the president's public rebuke only obscures the real problem: lack of reform, says Eugen Theise.

The firing of SBU intelligence services boss Ivan Bakanov and Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova is akin to a political earthquake in Ukraine. During a war, one would expect maximum solidarity from a government. Such dismissals register as a very public rejection of one's closest confidants.

In a video address on Sunday, the Ukrainian president said he was suspending both heads. His only voiced criticism was that too many officials of both agencies in the south and east of Ukraine had deserted after their regions had been occupied by Russian forces.

Maybe war has forced Volodymyr Zelenskyy to change his approach to politics after surrounding himself mainly with friends and former business partners? Hardly. His actions only look decisive on the surface..
.
.
.
G7 ambassadors have repeatedly criticized the fact that Ukraine's election oversight commission has done nothing for two years. So far, the president has largely ignored Western demands for action. Just as he has ignored criticism over Kyiv's lack of political will when it comes to finally wrapping up the glacial reform of Ukraine's bloated and scandal-ridden intelligence services.

But now, Zelenskyy can no longer ignore criticism from his Western partners, as he was able to do before the war. Without guns and money from the EU and the US, Ukraine would have gone broke long ago and would scarcely be able to resist Russia's onslaught. The reforms that are so essential for the strengthening of the Ukrainian state will now have to be implemented in the middle of a war. For this, the most experienced professionals are crucial, and not the president's kindergarten pals.

https://www.dw.com/en/opinion-zelen...62aac314e65050698&maca=en-AS-content-outbrain

 

[Cypress]

When it comes to corruption, political repression, tyranny the most pressing problems in the world today are the totalitarian states of Russia and China.

Putin's Russia is probably a bigger threat than china to human freedom and self determination. China is still ruled by old school communists, who for whatever their flaws were, generally could be considered rational State actors.

Putin's Russia is the world's first major criminal mafia nation-state, and we are in uncharted territory here. There has never been a purely criminal oligarchy that captured the levers of power in a major world power, and the old tenets of rational self interest in diplomatic theory may, or may not apply.

 

[Geeko Sportivo]

You know the world is fucked up when the Trumptards chime in and tell us the problem is with Zelenskyy- and not Putin!

 

[Sammy Jankis]

You know the world is fucked up when the Trumptards chime in and tell us the problem is with Zelenskyy- and not Putin!

they're both pawns in the deep state theatre called politics.

 

[Geeko Sportivo]

they're both pawns in the deep state theatre called politics.

I don't know about pawns- But more like Kings in Check!

 

[Walt]

Zelenskyy is the problem

I think the problem is Putin. But if you think the problem is that the Ukrainians have not surrendered, wouldn't the problem be the Ukrainians? Zelenskyy alone could not hold back the Russians. The problem Putin is having is the vast majority of the Ukrainians want to be independent of Russia, and are willing to fight to defend that independence.

I doubt Zelenskyy could surrender, even if he wanted to. The Ukrainians would remove him, and continue fighting.