Volodymyr Zelensky needs to rescue his own presidency

UKRAINE’S president, the comedian turned Churchillian war leader Volodymyr Zelensky, has backed down on his decision to seize control of the nation’s anti-corruption agencies. That averts a potential disaster for his country, and he deserves some credit for making the U-turn. But what to do with him now?

Zelensky’s heroic armour has been shattered. His misstep should serve as a reminder that he was not a popular president before Russia’s full invasion in February 2022, with an approval rating that hovered around 25 per cent. It was his response to the war, both genuinely gritty and brilliantly produced by the presidential staff he had drawn from his old TV company, Kvartal 95, that made him a geopolitical rock star.

This romantic image, reflected in his khaki T-shirts and fabled response to a US offer of evacuation in the first hours of fighting – “I need ammunition, not a ride” – was always going to fade. But it is the corruption that went on beneath the cover of martial law that has been exposed and cannot now be unseen. 

The key to understanding why this nation fights so hard is the sense, even among native Russian speakers with family across the border, that they are fundamentally different from Russians in how they want to live. To be Ukrainian is not just about place or language, but about a refusal to become subjects once more, ruled from the repressive, kleptocratic regime next door.

This struggle has been going on for decades, if not centuries. It has, since the break-up of the Soviet Union involved two popular uprisings against corrupt elites vulnerable to purchase by Moscow.

The 2004 Orange Revolution overturned an election stolen by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s preferred candidate, the epically venal Viktor Yanukovych. In 2014, after finally making it to the presidency, Yanukovych was overthrown in the Maidan Revolution, provoked by his refusal to sign a trade and association agreement with the European Union, bowing to Putin.

The war is an extension of this fight. It was never about sovereignty alone, but also about forcing Ukraine’s own kleptocratic elites to establish a European-style democracy and market economy governed by rule of law. The post-2014 creation of an independent investigative agency, prosecutor’s office and court to pursue high-level corruption was core to reaching that goal. 

So when Zelensky placed these institutions under his own control with the pretext of removing Russian influence last week, he was not just turning the clock back on hard-won progress. By acting just as the Kremlin would do, he was putting in question the very reason that many of those fighting and dying at the front give for volunteering.

That Zelensky’s move provoked street protests across the country, and that he reacted by changing course rather than sending in riot police, is testament to the fact that Ukraine really is different from its once and would-be-future colonial master.

Even assuming parliament now adopts Zelensky’s new legislation – not to be taken for granted, as they would be resurrecting the only independent bodies able to prosecute them for corruption – his misjudgment will leave a lasting mark, because its motivations were so transparent.

It came after the National Anti-Corruption Bureau had charged Zelensky’s close friend and ally Oleksiy Chernyshov with taking a large bribe, and was closing in on the co-founder of Kvartal 95, Timur Mindich.

At this point, Zelensky should not be asked to resign. That is a prospect Russia’s state media are salivating over. An election held amid wartime dislocation would tear Ukraine apart and could never produce an uncontested result. 

Nevertheless, Zelensky must turn this mistake into an opportunity if he wants to preserve the legacy that his early leadership of the war deserves. These events have exposed the reality of wartime corruption, including in the defense industry and its penetration to the highest levels. It is time to clean house and if that means divesting his closest friends, so be it.

It is time, too, to consider whether the tight group of advisers around the president who effectively have run the country since 2022, need a reshuffle more than his formal Cabinet, which got a new prime minister last week. Whether his aides encouraged his move to co-opt the anti-corruption agencies or failed to dissuade him from doing so, they have not served him well.

Ukrainians need to see Zelensky and his team share their democratic aspirations if recruitment and morale on the front lines are to remain resilient in the face of an increasingly brutal Russian assault. And at a time when Kyiv is asking foreign allies to pick up the tab not just for more weapons, but also to help boost salaries of his military, they need to see it, too.

Zelensky’s undoubted courage and story-making skills are no longer enough. BLOOMBERG