Geopolitics : News and discussion

In fall of 2023, Ukrainian General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the commander in chief of the country’s armed forces, gave an interview to the Economist and declared the war with Russia had become a “stalemate.” It took three months for President Volodymyr Zelensky to fire him. The general, who is the most popular public figure in Ukraine, was named ambassador to London a month later and has served there with distinction, if quietly.

Zaluzhnyi is now seen as the most credible successor to Zelensky. I have been told by knowledgeable officials in Washington that that job could be his within a few months. Zelensky is on a short list for exile, if President Donald Trump decides to make the call. If Zelensky refuses to leave his office, as is most likely, an involved US official told me: “He’s going to go by force. The ball is in his court.” There are many in Washington and in Ukraine who believe that the escalating air war with Russia must end soon, while there’s still a chance to make a settlement with its president, Vladimir Putin.

There are indications that Zelensky knows what is coming. He has just shifted or fired three officials: the minister of defense, the prime minister, and the ambassador to the United States. As the US official told me, Zelensky “is beginning to read the danger signs.”

What happens next, the official added, in terms of political violence inside Kiev and elsewhere, depends largely “on the degree to which the population has reached the point where they have no other choice. Zelensky will not go willingly but feet first. Herein lies a US internal debate. Smart side says let the Ukrainians sort it out by themselves and not get the CIA involved to seal the deal. So far, good sense drives the policy. But some unnamed leaders are impatient and this will take time—more than fifty days.”

I do not know Trump’s view on all of this. The president has publicly hardened his attitude toward Russia, telling the press after a meeting with a senior NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte official earlier this week that Putin had “fooled a lot of people”—including a few past US presidents—but “he didn’t fool me.” More US weapons will be sent to Ukraine, he said, increasing its ability to strike deep into Russia.

Russia’s official response to Trump’s remarks was to acknowledge their seriousness and that some of them were directed personally at Putin. Other officials made it clear that Russia will continue its increased tempo of attacks on Kyiv and elsewhere.

New York Times international correspondent Paul Sonne wrote that Russia seemed “unrattled” by Trump’s new hard-line stance. He noted that many Russian commentators “questioned whether Mr. Trump has really reversed course and is fully committed to supporting Ukraine.” I have been told here that Trump is still annoyed at Zelensky for his decision last winter to wear his usual combat clothes to what turned out to be a disastrous state visit in Washington, describing him as coming to the White House in “pajamas.”

Meanwhile, I was unable to learn whether Putin was aware of the US desire to push Zelensky out, but I did learn that Zaluzhnyi has maintained a working relationship with Valery Gerasimov, chief of staff of the Russian armed forces and a Putin confidant. Gerasimov, as I have previously written, was one of the few to know in advance that Zaluzhnyi would tell the Economist that the war was stalemated.

I have been provided with new Russian casualty numbers, from carefully evaluated US and British intelligence estimates, that show that Russia has suffered two million casualties—nearly double the current public numbers—since Putin started the war in early 2022. “Putin is not afraid of losing power, but he is losing popularity,” the US official said, “and Donald Trump is Zelensky’s supplier and the only one who can keep the Ukraine war going. Who’s got real power? It isn’t Zelensky. His only lifeline is the US. Trump is asking, ‘How do we get the pissants to stop? He thinks he’s the only one who can make the deal.

“The message to Putin is you can still say you won” if Zelensky is replaced.

The Russian combat losses are seen in Washington, I was told, as key to a renewed urge to get new leadership in Ukraine in order to begin serious negotiations to end the war, given Putin’s contempt for Zelensky and the possibility of escalation. The losses were at an all-time low of twenty per month last fall, as Putin waited for the results of the US election. “When Trump won,” I was told, the Russian leadership organized a spring offensive “to capture as much territory as possible” before another round of expected peace talks with Ukraine started.

The results were dismal. The offensive has only progressed 120 miles beyond the areas Russia already controlled in Ukraine. That gain, amid high casualties, was of minimal importance, I was told: “all farmland, no fortified towns or critical communication sites. The monthly casualties have been 380 a month through May. The total now is two million. Most importantly,” the official stressed, “was how this number was described. All the best trained regular Army troops, to be replaced by ignorant peasants. All the best mid-grade officers and NCOs dead. All modern armor and fighting vehicles. Junk. This is unsustainable.”

The US official went on: “With the offensive debacle, Putin turned to the ‘London Blitz’ strategy. The Brits stood firm under Winnie, but the residents of Kiev not so much under Zelensky.

“The Ukrainians are now taking sixty casualties per square mile [of advance]—sustainable in numbers but the forces left are mostly previously draft-exempt rejects recently dragooned into the army.”

Asked if some in Europe would vigorously reject a change in the Ukraine leadership, the US official predicted that “no one in Europe is going to sacrifice country life and weekends in Paris to support Zelensky. The Europeans will all go along.” The official reminded me, disdainfully, of Europe’s insistence that the Ukraine air force be provided with American built F-16 fighter airplanes and additional training in Romania and Denmark to learn English and then how to fly them. The planes were a total bust, he said: “The Ukrainian pilots learned how to take off but they don’t know how to land.”