2024-08-17 09:35:38
While the fighting has spread to Russian territory, the situation in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions is still critical for Ukrainians. President Zelenskyy is trying to continue to appear confidently in front of the world, however, the Russians are still advancing in many places on the front. But according to historian and Ukrainian expert David Svoboda, Zelenskyi has an even more serious problem. It is a growing criticism on its own domestic political scene.
“Volodymyr Zelenskyy will not go down in history in everything but good, but what he deserves credit for is certainly his ability to communicate and speak to his own nation,” Svoboda explains in Spotlight, adding that at the moment when the Ukrainian nation was really in danger, he was it was Zelenskyj with a certain boost that he desperately needed. “It keeps coming true,” he says.
However, the support of the Ukrainian president is not the majority, and in recent months, according to the historian, a large group of people has formed in Ukraine, which draws attention to some fatal missteps of the head of state and the government administration. “It is not about any extremists, it is mainly about Ukrainians of such a national-democratic conviction, especially from the camp of former President Petro Poroshenko,” comments Svoboda, according to whom Zelensky himself is leading a very indiscriminate campaign against the former head of state. “The dispute is simmering in society,” he warns.
According to David Svoboda, one of the Ukrainian president’s “missteps” is mainly the fact that Zelenskyi has become a long-term patron of many dubious people, whose loyalty to the Ukrainian state has reasonable doubts. “We don’t know if he is blackmailing them, or if they are blackmailing him, or if it was done without blackmail. We don’t have all the documents, only time will provide them,” says Svoboda.
At the same time, he adds that he does not expect any general “rebellion” against Volodymyr Zelensky, because Ukrainians realize that the Russian invasion is a bare fact that cannot be ignored. “They don’t make a politician out of the war, that this guy conspired and that Franta would have done it better. There is such a mournful view over all of this that safe coexistence with any Russia is impossible,” concludes the historian.
You can watch the entire interview in the video below or listen to it in your favorite podcast app. What were its main themes?
00:08-06:54 Was Ukraine able to humiliate the Kremlin with an unexpected incursion into the Kursk region? How high a game did Ukrainian President Zelenskyi play? How is Ukraine managing to regroup forces? And what can the courage to penetrate Russian territory come from?
06:54-12:18 Did the invasion of Ukraine show the weak point of the Russian army? Has the West corrected its position by supporting the country financially, politically and technologically? And does Ukraine now have to count on retaliation?
12:18-17:39 How does Vladimir Putin view the developments of the last few days? Did the oligarch and critic Oleg Deripaska take too much liberty with his statement about Russian conditions? And what are the dynamics on the front line now?
17:39-21:02 Is Moscow trying to convince the West of the irreversible capitulation of Ukraine? How must President Zelenskyy act now?
21:02-32:06 How is the Ukrainian perception of the war changing? How strongly are they inclined to accept peace agreements? And can President Zelensky even consider a ceasefire?
David Svoboda – Spotlight Aktuálně.cz | Video: Team Spotlight