Zaluzhnyi, Biletskyi, Budanov. Historian Yaroslav Hrytsak named national figures capable of replacing Zelenskyy
Kyiv • UNN
Historian Yaroslav Hrytsak named Zaluzhnyi, Biletskyi, and Budanov as possible successors to Zelenskyy. He noted that Ukraine is close to the risk of national collapse due to Russian advances, economic crisis, and a corruption scandal.
Currently, there are three national figures in Ukraine who could replace Volodymyr Zelenskyy as president: Valeriy Zaluzhnyy, Ukraine's Ambassador to the United Kingdom; Brigadier General Andriy Biletskyy, commander of the Third Army Corps; and Kyrylo Budanov, head of military intelligence. This was reported by historian Yaroslav Hrytsak in a comment to the Italian Corriere della Sera, as conveyed by UNN.
According to Hrytsak, Ukraine has never been so close to the risk of national collapse. He names three reasons why the country "could explode": Russian advances on the front, an economic crisis exacerbated by the bombing of the energy grid, and a moral and political crisis caused by a corruption scandal in the energy sector.
The problem remains that we cannot hold elections under Russian bombs. We will have to wait until the war ends, but Zelenskyy is not helping us win it at all.
The publication writes that the scandal involving Zelenskyy's inner circle has put his future political career in serious jeopardy. If he was previously perceived by the West as a symbol of resistance to the Russian war, he is now seen as a "poor administrator, incapable of long-term governance of a country at war." Inside Ukraine, his approval rating has fallen from 65 to 58 percent.
If the vote were held today, he would never be re-elected. The only way to win sympathy is to encourage investigations and immediately replace corrupt officials, and also to promise that he will never run again.
It should be recalled that on November 10, NABU announced the exposure of a large-scale scheme of embezzlement of funds in "Energoatom", and also published audio recordings of the participants' negotiations. They included Zelenskyy's associate, co-owner of "Kvartal 95" studio Timur Mindich, Minister of Justice Herman Halushchenko, former advisor to the Minister of Energy Ihor Myronyuk, Executive Director for Security of "Energoatom" Dmytro Basov, Oleksandr Tsukerman, Ihor Fursenko, Lesya Ustymenko, and Lyudmyla Zorina. Five of them have been detained. Mindich and Tsukerman have left Ukraine. According to NABU, about $100 million passed through the office of the defendants.