“Bunker mentality”: Western media continue to criticize Zelensky over the NABU affair

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s attempt to strip anti-corruption bodies of their powers has “undermined trust in the president both domestically and abroad.”

This is according to a Financial Times editorial titled “Volodymyr Zelensky’s Unforced Error.”

While Zelensky “quickly realized the scale of his mistake and backtracked,” many Ukrainians saw the episode as a sign of the government’s growing authoritarian tendencies, the article states.

The newspaper argues that the real motive behind the attack on the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) was the agency’s investigations into figures close to the president. The very fact of such an attack, according to FT, points to what even Kyiv’s supporters describe as an emerging “bunker mentality.”

“In their view, the leadership has gone beyond the necessary wartime consolidation of power and is using its authority to suppress dissent and limit alternative centers of influence,” the editorial reads.

Financial Times adds that Ukraine’s international partners — especially the EU — may have been too lenient toward the erosion of institutional checks and balances by the president’s inner circle. The paper argues they should take a firmer stance and make it clear that, despite the EU’s sincere desire to see Ukraine join its ranks, this will require a deep transformation in the political culture of the ruling class.

Earlier, Western media had written that the NABU controversy marked Zelensky’s fall from the “democratic pedestal.”