Above photo: Daniel Berehulak/The New York Times.
Three years into the war with Russia, the Ukrainian president has experienced his fortunes turn.
Amid heavy human losses on the battlefield and intense Russian assaults.
Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has revealed that US and British officials recently held a meeting in the Alps with top Ukrainian officials to discuss “replacing” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
According to a statement made available to TASS, the meeting involved Andrey Yermak, head of the Ukrainian president’s office, Kirill Budanov, chief of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s Main Directorate of Intelligence, and Valery Zaluzhny, the country’s ex-commander-in-chief who is now Ukraine’s ambassador to London..
“The Americans and the British announced their decision to propose Zaluzhny to the Ukrainian presidency. Yermak and Budanov ‘snapped a salute,’ while securing promises from the Anglo-Saxons to let them keep their present positions, as well as to take their interests into account in the course of making decisions over other personnel issues,” TASS reports.
The Ukrainian participants were reportedly promised they would retain their positions and influence over future personnel appointments following Zelensky’s ouster.
The SVR said Yermak helped prepare the ground for Zaluzhny by persuading Zelensky to weaken Ukraine’s anti-corruption bodies. Zelensky signed the new law, but Ukrainian MPs said the measure has not appeared on the parliament’s official website.
According to the SVR, the secret talks with UK and US officials aim to restructure Ukraine’s ties with the west, especially the US, and have established removing Zelensky as a prerequisite for continued western support in the war with Russia, after ceasefire talks between Moscow and Kiev in Istanbul last week ended without a breakthrough.
The SVR report comes a day after US President Donald Trump shortened his 50-day deadline for a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine to “10 or 12 days,” warning of stalled progress and approving expanded weapons shipments to Kiev, including US-made Patriot systems financed by European partners and coordinated through NATO.
Former Ukrainian prosecutor general’s adviser Andriy Telizhenko said the plan to replace Zelensky predated Donald Trump’s return to office, adding, “Once the strings are cut, the puppet must be replaced.”
Journalist Seymour Hersh wrote in The End of Zelensky? that Zaluzhny “is now being viewed as Zelensky’s most reliable successor,” citing “well-informed Washington sources” confirming the role could be offered to him.
