‘Signs of a rift between Zelensky and Zaluzhny began to emerge by the summer of 2022’, – a British journalist said

Signs of a rift between the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, and the Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, began surfacing by the summer of 2022.

British journalist Simon Shuster writes about this in his book on Volodymyr Zelensky, excerpts of which are being published by The Telegraph.

According to his information, some officials in the President’s Office then started suspecting Zaluzhnyi of “a thirst for power.”

Zaluzhnyi himself “clearly indicated” to Shuster that politicians and generals are “awkward partners,” and their relations worked best when Zelensky tried to persuade allies to provide weapons.

“He doesn’t need to understand military matters any more than he needs to know about medicine or bridge construction,” Zaluzhnyi said.

But when the Russian army began to retreat, Zelensky became more self-assured, established his own military priorities, which didn’t always align with the generals and subsequently, “the rift widened.”

At the same time, a close friend of the president, Yuriy Tyra, mentioned that Zaluzhnyi enjoyed a very high level of “admiration” among soldiers and they constantly asked him, “Are you with the president or with Zaluzhnyi? It’s one of the two.”