Volodymyr Zelensky is no Winston Churchill. Maybe even Winston Churchill was no Winston Churchill—in the sense of falling short of the Myth of Winston Churchill. As always, these are “necessary” fabrications that take root in the excruciating circumstances of wartime.
As I write this, Ukrainians are energetically protesting Zelenksy’s firing of the youthful defense minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, who had been driving Ukraine’s innovations in drone warfare against the Russians. Good for the protestors! This shows a vigor to civil society in Ukraine that is largely absent in Kremlin-ruled Russia.
No one seems to know exactly why Zelensky felt Fedorov had to go, but it’s a fair bet that jealousy of a potential rival to to his rule was one reason. This is a pattern with Zelensky. Remember the popular general, Valerii Zaluzhny? When the chatter in Kyiv got to talking about him as a Zelensky replacement, Zelensky exiled him to London as Ukraine’s ambassador to the U.K. There he still sits.
It’s only in the West, including America, that Zelensky is treated like some sort of deity, a treatment that began after Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine back in 2022. Yes, as President, with the Russians boring down on Kyiv, he didn’t bail. Good for him.
But as I really appreciated only on making a trip to wartime Ukraine, two years later, Ukrainians themselves—you know, the people—didn’t think of him in Churchillian terms. The number-one issue that Ukrainians wanted to talk to me about was pervasive corruption in their society, a stink that wafted its way up to the highest reaches of government.
I ended up writing two pieces drawn from my visit. The first was a takedown of Andrey Yermak, Ukraine’s “real power broker,” and Zelensky’s right-hand man . He was a kind of grasping State Oligarch in the making, I wrote. Everyone seemed to know it—from the proverbial man in the street to the Kyiv political elite to the Ukraine-focused folks in Washington. No secret, except that the Western press didn’t want to write that story. Zelensky’s indispensable top guy—his chief of staff! An Intelligence chief for the Zelensky-Yermak government hinted that I must be a Russian spy for pursuing the Yermak story. Yeah, sure. Anyway, Yermak was forced to step down late last year after an anti-corruption raid of his apartment, tied to a probe by investigators of a $100 million kickback scheme. I won’t go into all the other corruption scandals in Zelensky’s circles.
The second piece was an ode to Ukraine’s budding nationhood. Thanks not least to Putin the Invader, I wrote, the resilient and defiant Ukrainian people—again, the people—were coming together and taking a determined stand, at the cost of their blood.
Now, there are cracks in Ukrainian unity on current display, including resistance by draft-age men to going off to a fight in which they stand a pretty good chance of dying. This isn’t surprising four years into heavy-duty war, that a certain exhaustion has set in.
Nevertheless, not on Zelensky’s call but on their own initiative, including privately-funded ventures to destroy Russia’s infrastructure, Ukrainians are still taking the fight to Moscow. It’s tempting to say that Ukraine has done as well it has despite Zelensky, not because of him. That’s another story you’re not likely to read in the Western press. So here’s a suggestion: Read the Ukrainian press. Ukrainska Pravda for example, which has done groundbreaking work on corruption in Zelensky’s government. And stop viewing Zelensky with rose-colored spectacles.