| The news that Valerii Zaluzhnyi’s job was in jeopardy did not come as a shock. “This has been rumoured for several months,” Shaun Walker said. “Leaks of a meeting at which he was asked to resign were denied, and then Zelenskiy dodged the question for a week. Now it’s come out via an interview with Italian TV. Nine days since the story broke, it’s still the main topic of conversation in Kyiv.” Who is Valerii Zaluzhnyi? In July 2021, Zaluzhnyi was drinking a beer at his wife’s birthday party when he got a phone call revealing his appointment. His first response was: “What do you mean?” In June 2022, he gave an interview to Time magazine in which he reflected on his astonishment. ”I’ve often looked back and asked myself: How did I get myself into this?” he said. If that reaction is a reflection of his relative youth, at 48, and informality in comparison to more senior colleagues, Zaluzhnyi’s appointment has widely been seen as one of the smartest decisions of Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s presidency. Whereas older military leaders had been trained in Soviet academies with an emphasis on a highly centralised command model, Zaluzhnyi came up the ranks post-independence and follows a western approach of delegating many big decisions to battlefield commanders: “I certainly don’t think I am the smartest one here,” he told the Economist recently. “I must and do listen to those who are in the field. Because the initiative is there.” (Julian Borger’s profile of the general from last week has more on his view of military doctrine.) That approach bore significant fruit during the first phase of the war, when Russia’s comparative rigidity left it flat-footed in response to Ukrainian agility. The misdirection and lightning counteroffensive that routed Russian troops in the north-east of Ukraine in September 2022 were a huge vindication of Zaluzhnyi’s leadership. Zaluzhnyi is now known as the “iron general”, feted in memes and even a stamp showing him bringing Vladimir Putin to The Hague (above). “He is very popular,” Shaun said. “His star rose with the successes of the early part of the war, but it doesn’t seem to have fallen with a more stagnant situation on the frontline. There is not a widely held view that if only someone else was in charge, things would be different. That’s why this might be a risky move for Zelenskiy.” What has his relationship with Volodymyr Zelenskiy been like? Initially, the two men worked well together, in part because the president did not interfere with military decision-making. “[Zelenskiy] doesn’t need to understand military affairs any more than he needs to know about medicine or bridge-building,” Zaluzhnyi told Time. Zaluzhnyi, for his part, was the ideal fit for the president’s project of reforming a military viewed as sclerotic and stuck in the past. Zaluzhnyi shunned the media spotlight and maintained a sharp focus on military affairs. “He’s not a natural public speaker,” Shaun said. “He doesn’t come across as a narcissist who’s searching for credit. He hasn’t ever said he wants to go into politics, or come out attacking the leadership.” What’s changed? As the war has worn on and Ukraine’s progress has faltered, the relationship has become strained. Reports of tensions between the two men have persisted for months, and reached a new level recently when Zelenskiy publicly contradicted his commander-in-chief’s suggestion that the conflict was at a stalemate. Last week, Zaluzhnyi published an article on CNN claiming that bureaucracy is holding back defence production and bemoaning “the inability of state institutions in Ukraine to improve the manpower levels of our armed forces”. Zelenskiy and his aides reportedly view Zaluzhnyi’s public interventions as a sign of his ambition: “So far, Zaluzhnyi has not decided to enter politics, but he is considering this option, and the president’s office is afraid,” a source told Politico last week. While he has still never attacked Zelenskiy, “there is a feeling around the presidency that they have been blindsided by his interventions”, Shaun said. “Officially, they will tell you that this is not a personality thing – that in a stagnant military position, there is just a need for new ideas. But he seems to be seen as a threat – there are rumours of internal polls testing whether he would have a lot of support if he started a political party.” Last week, Shaun reported that Zaluzhnyi was offered the chance to resign, but declined to do so. Now the president has publicly acknowledged his desire to make a change, the situation appears irretrievable. Is Zelenskiy planning other changes? | 