Saying that the Time’s article published this week about Ukraine’s president (“Volodymyr Zelensky’s Struggle to Keep Ukraine in the Fight”) has made waves in Ukraine would be quite the massive understatement. The piece, which portrays an unshakable but lonely Ukrainian president surrounded by skeptical aides, facing rampant corruption, wavering international support and commanders refusing orders to advance on the frontline, has already led to thousands of news articles, TV segments, op-eds and social media posts crossing Ukraine.
The first reaction was probably anger, directed at the piece itself and the journalist who wrote it, accused of being a Russian asset at worst and of having relied on a single source at best—though there’s no indication that reporter Simon Shuster used any quotes from controversial former presidential advisor Oleksiy Arestovych (as many believe) in the piece.
Oleksiy Arestovych is undoubtedly taking advantage of the moment: the blogger has been making noise for a few weeks now, becoming a few weeks ago the first major political figure to break the country’s tacit unity pact by openly criticizing the government and calling for elections. Following the publication of the Time article, Arestovych announced he would be a candidate in the next presidential elections and called for peace negotiations with Russia.
But beyond the anger and the (unavoidable) political reactions, it’s worth pointing out that many in Ukraine did not dismiss the piece outright. Stanislav Bezushko, an activist and columnist in Lviv, took note first and foremost of the line in the Time article claiming that “some front-line commanders […] have begun refusing orders to advance, even when they came directly from the office of the President.” “If the head of the Office of the president and his deputies believe they can directly interfere with military decisions and influence combat operations, then that is very, very bad” Bezushko wrote on Facebook.
Also on Facebook, Silvester Nosenko, who worked as a translator for Zelensky between 2020 and 2022, wrote that the article “shows, once more, that Ukraine and the West are yet to agree on the political goals of the war with Russia, as well as the resources needed to accomplish those goals”. Nosenko then makes a sober prediction: “if, in the future, Ukraine makes any kind of deal to end the active phase of the conflict, we will probably find ourselves in the gray zone—a state of ‘no peace, no war’. The confrontation with Russia will continue in a hybrid form, but partners will reluctantly strengthen Ukraine, fearing the security dilemma, and will push us to reform instead of preparing for a new phase of aggression.”
More immediately, there are those who see the Time article as a signal and hope it will become a trigger for change. Arestovych is one of those who believe the current situation is unsustainable. Hennady Druzhenko, a well-known civil society figure and head of an NGO providing medical care for soldiers, agrees with the diagnosis—but definitely not with the treatment: the Time article, he said, should be for Zelensky a “cold shower” that should compel him to open a “new front of radical reforms”. It is pretty much a call for a total mobilization that, Druzhenko and many other activists lament, is still lacking.
The war has become a bloody meat grinder. Psychologically, it has moved to the back of many Ukrainians’ mind. Yes, most of us still actively donate, volunteer, believe in the Armed Forces, but the lines at the recruitment offices are in the distant past. Anyone who wants to fight has long been at war, in heaven or in hospitals. Either the country truly goes on a war footing, with all the hardships and pains of the great war as it was in the early phase, or we have to accept the prospect of negotiations. […]
Zelensky finally needs to understand that without radical changes inside the country, he will be forced to negotiate with Putin, which will mean his political death. And for this, he needs to realize that the time when he was liked by everyone and was considered a national and global hero is over. It's time to drop the military attire and open a second front - the front of radical reforms - inside the country.
Political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko had an interesting take on the debate as well, pointing out (correctly I think) that reactions have been so wildly different you may think people read different articles. Most surprising to him however has been the fairly common view that the article represented a signal from the West to Ukraine. “Listen, there’s no need to interpret every article published in Western media as a ‘signal from the West’, it is a primitive and incorrect view. […] Articles in Western media do not represent the position of the West, but a reflection of the various moods and assessments now present in the West regarding Ukraine and our war against Russia.”
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