Valery Zaluzhny may find allies in radical nationalists in his standoff with President Vladimir Zelensky, Larry Johnson says
FILE PHOTO: Graffiti depicting General Valery Zaluzhny. © Andriy Andriyenko / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky could lose his job before General Valery Zaluzhny, the nation’s top military commander, considering that the latter is backed by people with guns, former CIA analyst Larry Johnson has argued.
Last week, local media reported rumors that Zelensky had sacked Zaluzhny, before the president’s office denied the claim. However, Ukrainian and foreign media still described a tense meeting between the pair, with the general reportedly rejecting a call to resign voluntarily and the president hesitating to remove him under pressure from the military top brass. Zelensky has since told the press that a major overhaul of the military command was imminent.
Johnson discussed the dramatic events on Sunday with Nima Alkhorshid, the Brazil-based host of the YouTube channel, Dialogue Works. The situation resembles a soap opera or a game of musical chairs and would be hilarious “if hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians weren’t dead and maimed,” he said.
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The nation’s laws will not necessarily determine how tensions in the country’s leadership will be resolved, Johnson added.
”The guy with the gun usually wins and last time I checked Zaluzhny’s got more guns than Zelensky,” he said.
Comparing the two men, he said the general should not be seen as a “great guy.”
“I don’t want to present Zaluzhny as some sort of military genius or really a good-hearted man,” the commentator remarked. He is “a bit of a scumbag” who “embraces the neo-Nazi ideology,” Johnson claimed.
”He’s been very careful to not insert the most ideologically driven troops – the Azov and the Kraken units – into the front lines where they get killed, because he wants to preserve them. Instead, he is sending the cannon-fodder guys.”
Whether or not Zaluzhny shares the radical nationalist ideology of the Ukrainian far-right is hard to tell from his public statements, but he is believed to have considerable support in those circles.
Zaluzhny on eve of his expected firing by Zelensky shows his backing from far-right, which has power to overthrow Zelensky. Zaluzhny takes selfie with leader of far-right Right Sector & commander of Right Sector brigade of Ukrainian military in front of portrait of Nazi… pic.twitter.com/pMtUQVtMcp
— Ivan Katchanovski (@I_Katchanovski) February 2, 2024
A post was published on social media last Friday by Andrey Stempitsky, a Ukrainian military leader who is also a prominent member in the nationalist Right Sector group. It featured a photo of him giving Zaluzhny an honorary ID, certifying the general as the first member of Stempitsky’s brigade. A portrait of Stepan Bandera, a Ukrainian nationalist leader and Nazi collaborator, was in the background of the image.
Zelensky was elected president in 2019 on a platform of reconciliation with rebels in the east and with Russia, but threats of violence by the extreme right made his office pull back from early attempts to deliver on that promise.
