If they’re saying Zelensky’s an autocrat, we should all be worried

As Russia’s war on Ukraine starts to emerge into the news once again from beneath the shadow of the newer conflict in the Middle East, you might have noticed a change. It is a change of mood quite as much as a change of substance – and, as you may also have noticed, it is the opposite of upbeat.

It is evident most conspicuously, and crucially, at the centre of power in Kyiv. Volodymyr Zelensky, for so long the shining hero of Kyiv’s resistance to Moscow, is facing increasingly open criticism, including from some of those hitherto seen as closest to him.

The latest is the mayor of Kyiv, former boxing champion Vitali Klitschko, who told the Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine that Zelensky risked becoming an autocrat, which could mean Ukraine being “no different from Russia, where everything depends on the whim of one man”.

Klitschko’s relations with Zelensky have not always been smooth, as when Zelensky took Klitschko to task for the state of bomb shelters in Kyiv, but this is criticism of another order – from a man with the charisma to become a rival for power (although he insisted Zelensky should stay until the war was over).

Another open critic is the – maybe former – head of Ukraine’s armed forces, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, who vouchsafed some home truths about the state of the war as he saw it to the Economist magazine last month. His interview was noted chiefly for the way he described the war as at a “stalemate”, but there was plenty more: about how Zelensky’s trust ratings had fallen to 32 per cent; how there he had disagreed with Zelensky on tactics; how four months should have been, but wasn’t, enough for Ukrainian forces to reach Crimea; and how a protracted war was now not only likely, but could eat away at Ukraine’s statehood.

There have since been reports that Zelensky tried and failed to get Zaluzhnyi to resign, or that he has been sacked. With neither outcome confirmed, this makes for an extraordinarily uncertain situation at the centre of power in the midst of a war, and one that can surely not endure.

All the while, a dispute has also been hotting up about whether Ukraine should hold presidential elections on schedule next spring, or if it should wait until the war is over.

Zelensky – surely rightly – argues that, according to both the law and practicality, elections should not be held under martial law. His supporters add that even Churchill postponed elections until after the victory (though they generally neglect to point out that his military victory was not replicated at the ballot box). Of those who want elections held on time, at least some may hope, or believe, that Zelensky could be voted out.

Which leads on to a second area of change – in the public mood in Ukraine. It is not just unity in the top team that seems to be fraying, but wider morale. For the first year of the war, spirits were high, something remarked upon by everyone who visited the country. This is no longer so. With casualties mounting and the news from the frontline of little progress, a sense of war-weariness – even depression – is observed by many of those who have visited recently.

Zelensky, too, seems to have lost much of his cheery defiance – though more remarkable perhaps is how he was able to sustain that for so long. Reports of his autumn trip to the US spoke of his impatience and short attention span. Although expected to appear to argue Ukraine’s case for more help, he simply failed to attend a recent Zoom meeting with US senators.

And this points to the sad reality for Zelensky – that war fatigue and a certain sense of disillusionment go beyond Ukraine. Not only are Zelensky and Ukraine no longer attracting the adulatory reception they could once count on, but other views are creeping into Western coverage: the voices of officers and men critical of the losses and the way the war is being fought, and reports of Ukraine’s age-old scourge of corruption, whether in military procurement or draft-dodging. A Time magazine profile a few weeks ago painted a picture of Zelensky as a leader detached from the public mood, and even from reality. (It is worth recalling that, not 12 months ago, Zelensky was lauded as Time’s person of the year.)

Meanwhile, an almighty political fight is in progress in the United States for the latest package of funding that President Biden wants sent to Ukraine. Commitments to Israel mean not only that there is sudden competition for funds, armaments and media attention, but that Republicans in Congress are asking hard questions about what US support has so far achieved. With the US entering a presidential election year, bipartisan support for Ukraine is not what it was. Kyiv faces a real prospect of not getting the help it wants – and needs.

This, along with the less rosy view that now prevails of Ukraine’s performance on the battlefield, may lie behind a bleak warning issued by Jens Stoltenberg, the secretary general of Nato and until now one of Ukraine’s most ardent cheerleaders. “We have to support Ukraine in both good and bad times,” he told the German broadcaster ARD, adding: “We should also be prepared for bad news.”

None of this bodes well for Ukraine. But the change of mood is not quite as precipitate as it may seem. The signs have been multiplying since at least the realisation sank in that Ukraine’s much-trailed counteroffensive of the spring or early summer had failed. For a while, Ukraine’s allies put a brave face on the setbacks, with the focus instead on some successful strikes on Crimea, the supposed scale of Russian casualties, and President Putin’s woes, in the form of the Wagner mutiny and the war crimes arrest warrant that curbs his travels abroad.

The darker reality is now harder to disguise – although some are trying, especially in Europe, where senior politicians are hugely invested in a Ukrainian victory, but without the means to make it happen without US support. This might help to explain why Stoltenberg’s words were met, for the most part, with an eerie silence in most European capitals, even as the message from political leaders has undergone a subtle shift. The confident “Ukraine will win” has been replaced by the desperate “Ukraine must win” – a small change, but one that speaks volumes.

No less disturbingly, it invites the question: could Russia win? And, if so, what might that mean?

Here, of course, a definition of win – or lose – is crucial. On the plus side, there is a sense in which Ukraine has already won: it has won the moral victory; it has reinforced its national identity and its right to statehood beyond challenge, and this will stand, regardless of anything else. If this was a war of independence, it has won, albeit at a massive cost.

And Russia has lost – if the purpose of its war was to take over or destroy Ukraine. My view, for the record, is that Russia’s objective was different: it was rather to eliminate, one way or another, the security threat that it saw in Ukraine’s military alignment with the West. And in this, if the war proceeds on its current course, it could succeed. The notion that some are putting about of a “victorious” Russia then rushing into the Baltic States or Poland is quite wrong. Russia lacks the military reach, and anyway that is not what the war was for.

The difficulty for Ukraine is that it will find it hard actually to claim victory, because it has set its definition so high. In a position taken by Zelensky and now enshrined in Ukraine’s law, Ukraine will settle for nothing less than recovering all occupied territory, including Crimea. Land for peace is an old, and often unpopular idea, but it could be the only way to end this war – and save Ukraine from even more catastrophic losses.

Anything less than out-and-out victory for Ukraine, however, would constitute defeat of a kind also for Ukraine’s allies – though this could present less of a dilemma for the US than for most European leaders. A US president, still more one campaigning for re-election or newly elected, can turn foreign policy on a dime, for all that the question will echo about “who lost Ukraine?” Not so, in Europe.

Europe’s leaders have pledged their support to Ukraine “for as long as it takes” – but if the US retreats, they will be left without the means to defend Ukraine by themselves, accommodate perhaps millions more refugees, or rebuild the country.

Any UK government, heir to Boris Johnson’s typically extravagant promises, will be particularly exposed. It is not a happy prospect, but it must be faced, if only in the faint hope of limiting the damage.