Kim Barker

They want the country to hold together.

But for the first time, you had the sense that opposition was forming against Zelensky.

You had the sense that the political parties were getting together.

There were calls for a vote of no confidence in parliament.

What is Zelensky's response been to the scandal?

I mean, Zelensky's response to the scandal has been, look, if there's anybody guilty of corruption in this administration or anywhere, they should pay in court.

Anybody who

commits corruption needs to face the consequences right but he has not been specific about these charges he's not talked about his allies who have been accused of this his chief of staff after these accusations first appeared disappeared for more than five days which was highly unusual so it felt like the administration was just kind of going quiet seeing if it was going to blow over and

And then they would figure it out.

But it was not blowing over.

It was not blowing over at all.

It was snowballing until this peace plan leaked.

And this peace plan was very beneficial to Russia.

In fact, it looked as if Russia had written some of the proposals.

Among them, Ukraine would never be able to join NATO, ever.

Ukraine would permanently have to have a smaller military.

Ukraine would have to cede territory that Russia hadn't even won yet.

All of these being non-starters, basically, for Ukraine.

All of these are non-starters, especially the idea of having a smaller military.

If you look at the history of how Russia has been trying to take a bite of Ukraine there, a bite of Ukraine here, right?