Bombs and bombshells: Zelensky under pressure
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What recent events are putting President Zelensky under pressure?
The Economist.
Hello and welcome to the intelligence from The Economist. I'm Jason Palmer. Today on the show, China's government gets serious about mental health and the insidious, surreptitious politics of Paw Patrol. First up though.
It was another night of fear and destruction in Ukraine's capital, Kyiv. More than a dozen killed in the latest Russian strikes. Each more dangerous than the last as Ukraine runs short of interceptors. That has become the chronic anxiety for Ukrainians. But a more acute problem is growing in the halls of power. In part from someone recently ejected from them, and in part from investigations poking around in them.
It's not been a good week for Ukraine or President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Oliver Carroll is our Ukraine correspondent.
He had his former defence minister Mikhailo Fyodorov call for a presidential election and make not so subtle hints about the corrupt nature of those closest to the president, while anti corruption detectives at the same time stepped up investigations into that close circle. And all of this is happening at a time when Russia is stepping up brutal attacks on Ukraine's defense industry and its civilian industry, too, swinging the pendulum away from Ukraine. Several months before any of us expected. So it's a moment of increasingly limited room for maneuver.
And certainly this is not the first time that that Mr. Fyodorov has been making noises.
Exactly. Of course, the first time we heard about this publicly was in July when Mikhail Fyodorov was dismissed from his post six months in by William Zelensky. This was after essentially a dispute between the defence minister and the top general, Alexander Sirski. In the end, both of them were dismissed. But Fyodorov has been working out slowly what does this make him now? Is he in the opposition? Is he still part of Zelensky's team? And this is one of the sort of tragedies of for Zelensky, at least, of what's happened, because right until very recently, Mikhail Fyodorov was one of the most loyal members of his team. And Some of the language which he used, for example, about calling for presidential elections, I know that he was using exactly the same language to push the idea of elections, but to re-elect Zelensky just a few weeks ago.
So this is something that it's a problem of Zelensky's own making. In many ways Fyodor is a symptom, rather than a cause, of a growing sense of chaos, lack of direction. And a shrinking circle. You know, yesterday's revelations, which anti-corruption detectives talked about, this new operation called Forest Gump, which they'd exposed, which purportedly showed presidential staff involved in money laundering. To provide bail for government officials, the same anti-corruption detectives had charged in previous investigations. I mean, this kind of thing is extremely embarrassing. It's getting very close to the president himself. He hasn't fared well in these previous corruption scandals. And up until now, Fieldov had been very careful not to cross the line.
But I understand he felt frustrated. He felt the time was right. Yeah. Whether he really knows what comes next, I mean I have doubts.
But now, pointedly, he has called for an election. What what are the odds of that? What is the appetite for that?
I've been speaking to people in and around Fyodorov's team, and there is a sense that they're a little bit surprised at the lack of support for it. It's been lukewarm at best, even from people who are sympathetic to Fyodorov. Ukrainians, they are frustrated with this sense that there is, you know, growing poverty, economic malaise, Zelensky's rating is falling, people are looking for alternatives, even though there isn't really any possibility of election. Elections. But Ukrainians themselves, all the polling shows, they're against the idea of elections, primarily because it would cause disruption at a time when the country really needs to consolidate on the war effort. But also because it's really quite hard to see how it would be allowable under the constitution.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What recent events are putting President Zelensky under pressure?
0:03–6:55
2
How did former defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov’s call for elections spark a political crisis?
6:55–13:37
3
What do the new anti‑corruption investigations reveal about Zelensky’s inner circle?
13:37–18:55
4
How is the war’s shift to air power affecting Ukraine’s civilian economy and grain exports?
18:55–22:28