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| A resignation that never happened. Power struggle unfolds in Ukraine |
| 2024-01-31 |
| Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Denis Davydov [REGNUM] The evening of January 29 thundered with the sensation that the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhny was removed from his post, as stated by several prominent Ukrainian media personalities. Vague denials soon followed, and as of the morning of January 30, Zaluzhny was still in his place - as was the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Moscow Region, Kirill Budanov, who was announced as a replacement. However, the explosion was strong enough to sow acute concern in the media environment and politics in Ukraine, which is evident even from the silence of the leading media. Everyone is tensely waiting for the continuation, and the people’s deputy from Poroshenko’s “Eurosolidarity” Alexey Goncharenko and the editor-in-chief of the website “Censor. no” Yuri Butusov, who traditionally supported Zaluzhny, argue that in fact the decree on the general’s resignation has already been signed, but has not yet been made public. Regnum's own sources in Kiev confirm that there is a situation of acute crisis. Now bargaining continues at the highest level, since for Zelensky any decision is bad. There really was a meeting, and Zaluzhny was asked to write his resignation report on his own. What he refuses: “Fire on your own responsibility.” At the same time, over the past months, he has systematically destroyed all connections between the Office of the President and the army; any decisions of the political authorities are pointedly ignored by him. There is no way to leave everything as it is for the president. To expel a commander popular among the troops, who already has a solid political coalition behind him, by decree would immediately result in an internal war. Well, Budanov, don’t be a fool, refuses to simply take the place of commander in chief, his condition is to maintain control over the Main Intelligence Directorate and impose complex changes in personnel on the new position. His relationship with Zelensky is built normally and there is mutual understanding. As commander-in-chief, the young killer-saboteur arouses skepticism among experts. It is not his level and he has not been noted for any special successes in his post - despite several high-profile actions. Blowing something up is not leading a huge war machine. But explosions are exactly what they expect from him on Bankova. So, in the very near future, this huge abscess will burst, introducing some adjustments to Ukrainian affairs. IT WON'T WORK OUT QUIETLY As IA Regnum has already explained more than once, the conflict between the OP and the General Staff, based on political competition, inevitably had to end with Zaluzhny’s removal from office. Only in order to neutralize him as a competitor already in the public field (and in possible elections), the general needs to be discredited. It is with this, as our interlocutors suggest, that the current stuff is connected, the main source of which is deputies from Petro Poroshenko’s party or people close to the ex-president. They form the backbone of the so-called “Zaluzhny party,” which has already manifested itself in the Verkhovna Rada. The purpose of the stuffing is to prevent the “persuasions” from going quietly, since the general is presented with an alternative: either he becomes, for example, the head of the Security Council (or, as some politicians and journalists claim, an ambassador “to one of the countries”), or he will be drowned. The noise about corruption in the army has not stopped recently. The SBU came with searches to current officials of the Ministry of Defense, the same thing is happening to the managers of the Lviv Arsenal. They are suspected of embezzling one and a half billion in the purchase of shells. Among the defendants is Alexander Liev, who was the head of the Department of Military-Technical Policy under the Ministry of Defense. By the way, a former true believer of the “regionals” and organizer of the Anti-Maidan. At the same time, new inspections of the operation of the TCC were launched, where “multiple violations were identified.” The tireless people's deputy Maryana Bezuglaya never tires of trashing the commander-in-chief, and in recent messages she even called him a chronic drunkard. He was smeared for his proposal to call up an additional 500 thousand soldiers (Zaluzhny himself later denied this). Discussions on the mobilization bill, for which Bankova tried to shift responsibility to Zaluzhny, came as a shock to society. An appropriate background is being created, in support of which more and more blatant facts will be included. But the most dangerous thing for the general is the criminal cases initiated regarding the abandonment of the entire south of Ukraine without a fight in the spring of 2022 and the latest story about the downed Il-76 with prisoners of war who were sent for exchange. This is a pure “set-up” for the military, since it was involved in organizing the GUR, which publicly washed its hands. “It was just a story of pinning things on him. The same thing happened with the plane shot down in Lugansk in 2014, when paratroopers were killed and several generals were imprisoned. So it is here: he is still a witness, but his status can be reclassified - as in the case of how the RF Armed Forces easily captured the south, which the Armed Forces of Ukraine mediocrely lost,” says political scientist Mikhail Pavliv to IA Regnum. At the same time, there is a silver lining: Zelensky’s push automatically increases Zaluzhny’s political weight, and he understands this. He is not unarmed, he has unquestioned authority in the military environment, behind him is a mountain of oligarchs (primarily Poroshenko) and a consolidated “opposition.” If the general emerges not as a commander-in-chief constrained by obligations, but as a public speaker, he will be able to say what he could not say before, Pavliv is sure. This will be a terrible blow for the president and his entourage. So right now he needs to choose between a bad and a very bad scenario: Bankova no longer has any good moves left. And replacing a rebellious commander in chief with an obedient one is unlikely to change anything. HU FROM MR. BUDANOV The head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, Kirill Budanov, is the youngest head of Ukrainian military intelligence in history; he turned 38 years old in January. But his biography includes a rich track record of sabotage and terrorist acts. Budanov took his current post in the summer of 2020, a year later receiving the rank of brigadier general - the first rank of senior officers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. He remains at the post of head of the Main Intelligence Directorate even now, differing from his colleagues in that he regularly gives interviews and makes loud statements. For example, that “we have killed and will kill Russians anywhere in the world.” But his value for Zelensky lies not only in his ability to organize terrorist attacks and engage in sabotage. Kirill Alekseevich is in close contact with the British, whose hands are carrying out strikes on Russian territory (in particular, there is an opinion that it was they who helped shoot down the Il-76 near Belgorod). He is considered a favorite of the chief of the US Defense Intelligence Agency, Lieutenant General Scott Berrier. Even his appointment took place exactly a week after Berrier took over as head of the DIA. He also has an excellent relationship with the secretary and confidant of the president, Maria Levchenko. Thus, in the event of Zaluzhny’s replacement as commander-in-chief, Budanov will give the President’s Office what it needs: instead of a positional dead end, regular high-profile actions that can be boasted to the public; loyalty and normal interaction; continuation of the war in the “British” style - with all intransigence and mercilessness. First of all, to our own citizens. However, the young general himself understands the risks associated with such a transition, and, according to IA Regnum sources, puts forward counter conditions. The first of them is maintaining control over the power steering. The second is a package of personnel changes that will make the new position strong. “We should not forget that Budanov was in a triple confrontation for a long time (with Ermak, with Zaluzhny and with his immediate superior Umerov). In this situation, any planning is met with sabotage. It was the need to resist intrigue that explained the publicity that was unusual for heads of special services,” writes the best Ukrainian political scientist Kost Bondarenko. That is, it is necessary to remove the people of the previous leader from the General Staff, replace the Minister of Defense, who managed to remain in office for only six months, with Budanov’s man, and, in fact, unite military intelligence, the power of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the administrative resources of the Moscow Region in one hand. Such resources will make Budanov a very influential person in the country. So influential that he might even think that he no longer needs the top bosses. But in any case, all this is a reason to stop underestimating a leader who “does not have experience in commanding a unit larger than a platoon.” His arrival as commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (if it does take place) will change the strategy of the Ukrainian troops, where the army will turn into a barrier holding the defense, and the emphasis will be on sabotage actions behind enemy lines, attacks by small groups on certain targets, and an increase in the use of air and sea forces. drones. Zelensky and “foreign partners” are more than happy with all this. Only in this case will there be a constant presence of “friendly fire” from Zaluzhny and his close generals, who are now in command and in this capacity are accepted everywhere in Western countries. It is no coincidence that the embassies reacted to the news of his resignation with excitement. Opponents of the current team, vying for power, get a powerful trump card and can rock the boat so that everyone in the OP will quickly feel sick. It will no longer be quiet, and who will prevail in this battle should be shown by the elections, in which Valery Zaluzhny, who has not yet indicated his presidential ambitions, is already collecting as many votes as Zelensky. And in a hypothetical election to the Verkhovna Rada, his conditional party leaves far behind all the political forces that could support Zelensky. Another thing is that within the framework of the struggle for power, one thing remains stable: the Ukrainian people are still hostage to a system that will destroy them in any political situation. |
| Posted by:badanov |