President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy has suggested that the involvement of generals in politics threatens national unity. This remark was made against the backdrop of the publication by the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Valeriy Zaluzhnyy, on the stalemate in the war, writes The Sun, whose journalist spoke to Zelenskyy in Kyiv.
When The Sun asked Zelenskyy about his relationship with the command, the president said that the generals who entered politics made a mistake. He also believes that senior commanders risk disobedience from their soldiers if they become politicians.
He spoke about Ukrainian commanders who entered politics after 2014, when Russia occupied Crimea and parts of the eastern regions.
"Different political forces are pushing the military into politics," he said.
The president added that "it was after 2014, when every political party wanted some military, war stars, and I think it was a very big mistake".
"If a serviceman decides to engage in politics, it is his right, then he should go into politics, and then he has no time for war," he said.
"With all due respect to General Zaluzhnyy and all the commanders on the battlefield, there is an absolute understanding of the hierarchy, and that's it, and there cannot be two, three, four, five. There is only one, and according to the law and in wartime, this is out of the question. This does not lead to the unity of the nation," he added.
In late October, Valeriy Zaluzhnyy wrote a lengthy column for The Economist about the current state of affairs at the front. He stressed that the war is now turning into a positional war, and that a number of things are needed to overcome this situation: gaining air superiority, overcoming the deeply entrenched system of minefields, improving the effectiveness of counter-battery combat, creating and training the necessary reserves, and building up electronic warfare capabilities. He presented his thoughts from a military point of view, not a political one, but stressed that a positional war would lead to a prolongation of the war, which would be beneficial to the enemy.
Presidential office Andriy Yermak's deputy, Ihor Zhovkva, responded by saying that after the publication, "he was asked in a panic" whether we were in a dead end. He also decided to recommend that the military "comment less" on the events at the front.
In response to the article, President Zelenskyy assured that there was no stalemate.