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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wolf" data-source="post: 140059" data-attributes="member: 199">Some truths.Part 1.<h3>Zelensky’s end goal is in sight, and so is his end</h3>The Ukrainian leader is not “turning” to authoritarianism – it has always been his goal, and when he has it, he won’t let go<a href="https://www.rt.com/op-ed/authors/tarik-cyril-amar/" target="_blank">By Tarik Cyril Amar, a historian from Germany working at Koç University, Istanbul, on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, the history of World War II, the cultural Cold War, and the politics of memory</a><a href="https://twitter.com/tarikcyrilamar" target="_blank">@tarikcyrilamar</a><a href="https://tarikcyrilamar.substack.com/" target="_blank">tarikcyrilamar.substack.com</a><a href="https://www.tarikcyrilamar.com/" target="_blank">tarikcyrilamar.com</a>When the US picks clients, vassals, and proxies, it needs men or women ready to trade in the interests, even the welfare and lives of their compatriots. Vladimir Zelensky is such a man. A look at the elites of EU-NATO Europe shows he is not alone. But he is an especially extreme case.It is much less than a decade ago that the former media entrepreneur and comedian – often crude instead of witty – advanced from being a <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/ihor-kolomoisky-ukraine-criminal-case/" target="_blank">pet protégé</a> of one of Ukraine’s most corrupt oligarchs to capturing the country’s presidency. As it turned out, never to let go of it: Zelensky has used the war, which was provoked by the West and escalated in February 2022, not only to make himself an indispensable if very expensive and often obstreperous American puppet but also as a <a href="https://www.rt.com/russia/598185-ukraine-zelensky-plan-term-over/" target="_blank">pretext to evade elections</a>.And yet, now signs are multiplying that his days of being indispensable may be over. For one thing, Seymour Hersh, living legend of American investigative journalism, is reporting that Zelensky is very unpopular where it matters most, in US President Donald Trump’s White House. This is not surprising: Trump’s recent turn against Russia – whatever its real substance or marital reasons – does not mean a turn in favor of Ukraine and even less so in favor of Zelensky, as attentive observers have noted. According to the Financial Times, “Western allies of Ukraine” still believe that Trump keeps seeing Russian President Vladimir Putin <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/8260e3c4-c0b2-43d4-888f-e008951c7e34" target="_blank">“as his main negotiating partner and Zelensky as the primary obstacle to a workable peace deal.”</a>And according to <a href="https://substack.com/home/post/p-168643905" target="_blank">“knowledgeable officials in Washington”</a> who have talked to Hersh, the US leadership is ready to act on that problem by getting rid of Zelensky. And urgently: Some American officials consider removing the Ukrainian president “feet first” in case he refuses to go. Their reason, according to Hersh’s confidants: to make room for a deal with Russia.Hersh has to make do with publishing anonymous sources. It is even conceivable that the Trump administration is leaking this threat against Zelensky to pressure him. Yet even if so, that doesn’t mean the threat is empty. Judging by past US behavior, using and then discarding other countries’ leaders is always an option.Another, also plausible, possibility is that Zelensky will be discarded to facilitate not ending, but continuing the war, so as to keep draining Russian resources. In this scenario, the US would prolong the war by handing it over to its loyally self-harming European vassals. After, that is, seeing to the installation of a new leader in Kiev, one it has under even better control than Zelensky. Just to make sure the Europeans and the Ukrainians do not start understanding each other too well and end up slipping from US control. <a href="https://eadaily.com/en/news/2025/07/18/on-the-departure-list-zaluzhny-may-replace-zelensky-in-the-coming-months-hersh" target="_blank">The Ukrainian replacement candidate everyone whispers about</a>, old Zelensky nemesis General Valery Zaluzhny – currently in de facto exile as ambassador to the UK – might well be available for both options, depending on his marching orders from Washington.Meanwhile, as if on cue, Western mainstream media have started to notice the obvious: The Financial Times has found out that critics accuse Zelensky of an “<a href="https://www.ft.com/content/22f4d5a9-cb23-45c3-b585-02b418a22619" target="_blank">authoritarian slide</a>,” which is still putting it very mildly but closer to the truth than past daft hero worship. The Spectator – in fairness, a magazine with a tradition of being somewhat more realistic about Ukraine – has fired a broadside under the title “<a href="https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/ukrainians-have-lost-faith-in-zelensky/" target="_blank">Ukraine has lost faith in Zelensky.</a>” The Economist <a href="https://www.economist.com/europe/2025/07/22/outrage-in-ukraine-as-the-government-attacks-anti-corruption-watchdogs" target="_blank">has detected an “outrage”</a> in Zelensky’s moves and, more tellingly, used a picture of him making him look like a cross between a Bond villain and Saddam Hussein. <a href="https://www.dw.com/de/wie-untaugliche-in-die-streitkr%C3%A4fte-der-ukraine-kommen/a-73313856" target="_blank">Even Deutsche Welle</a>, a German state propaganda outlet, is now reporting on massive human rights infringements under Zelensky, with the impaired systematically targeted for forced mobilization.Full disclosure: Knowing Ukrainian and Russian – Ukraine’s two languages – well and having written about the realities of Zelensky’s misrule for years already, my immediate response to these sudden revelations is “what took you so long?” My first articles explaining Zelensky’s obvious authoritarian tendencies – and practices, too – date back to 2021, and I have repeatedly pointed out that his popularity was slipping. All it took was to pay attention to Ukrainian polling.But then, I know the reason for the mainstream’s delay: The bias induced by Western information warfare and media career conformism, which only weakens a little – or is redirected – when the geopolitics of the powerful change. In that sense, the increasingly sharp public criticism of Zelensky is yet another sign that he has fallen – and remains – out of favor with the American leadership that rules the West.Zelensky’s recent actions may well indicate, as Hersh also suspects, that he knows he is in great danger – and not from Russia but his “friends” in the West. Just over the course of the last two weeks, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/7/18/ukraine-appoints-new-prime-minister-in-major-government-reshuffle#:~:text=Ukrainian%20President%20Volodymyr%20Zelenskyy%20has%20appointed%20a%20new,government%20reshuffle%20since%20Russia%20invaded%20three%20years%20ago." target="_blank">Zelensky has reshuffled his government</a> and, at the same time, started a devastating campaign against institutions and individuals that have two things in common: the mission to combat corruption and a well-deserved reputation for being particularly open to US influence.Indeed, it is when Zelensky escalated his attacks on the latter that the Financial Times woke up from years of sweet slumber to discover there’s something authoritarian about the West’s top man in Ukraine. By now, things have only gotten worse: The domestic intelligence – and, of course, repression – service SBU has raided key anti-corruption organizations and made arrests. Simultaneously, Zelensky’s absolutely obedient majority in the Ukrainian parliament has passed <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/ukraine-lawmakers-vote-to-curb-autonomy-of-anti-graft-agencies/ar-AA1J4Nux?ocid=BingNewsVerp" target="_blank">a law to completely neuter these institutions by putting them under the president’s control</a>, which the president then signed rapidly. By now, <a href="https://www.rt.com/russia/621845-mass-protests-zelensky-anticorruption-crackdown/" target="_blank">Ukraine is witnessing widespread protests</a> against Zelensky’s attempt to combine maximum greed with unfettered if petty despotism.For the Ukrainian news site Strana.ua – a media rarity, as it has managed to resist the Zelensky regime’s aggressive attempts to subdue and streamline it – the SBU raids on the anti-corruption agencies alone were a powerplay, designed <a href="https://strana.news/news/488623-sbu-provela-obyski-u-detektivov-nabu-i-v-sap-.html" target="_blank">to consolidate Zelensky’s one-man rule</a>. That is correct, and he wasn’t even done.</blockquote>

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