The ministers of Zelenskyi's government are submitting their resignations one by one. However, Bálint Somkuti warns against drawing hasty conclusions, saying that there are several interpretations of what happened.
In Kiev, several ministers, including Dmitro Kuleba, the head of Ukrainian diplomacy, submitted their resignations this week. How why? According to some, Volodymyr Zelensky is trying to concentrate power, while others see the events as a sign of the president's imminent fall. At the same time, Zelensky stated that the country needs a stronger cabinet in this difficult period. This sounds a bit like the president of Ukraine fired the people in question. By the way, Kuleba said earlier: he will be a minister as long as he enjoys Zelensky's trust and as long as he can personally agree with the president's policy.
Did you get fired? Have you had enough? What could have happened? The possibilities and the expected consequences were taken into account by Bálint Somkuti, a researcher at the MCC Geopolitics Workshop.
"It all happened completely unexpectedly." Now everyone is trying to guess, but this is like Cold War criminology: given a black box, we can roughly see what goes in and what comes out of it, but what happens inside, we don't, said Somkuti, who believes that several types of there is also a reading of this story.
"One is that Andrij Jermak, the head of the presidential office, is trying to further strengthen his own position. This is also an option.
There are those who say that we are seeing the signs of a deeper crisis, so that these politicians had information that is not yet known to the public, but they know something, and we do not want to give their names to what follows.
According to another point of view, those leaving were the people of an oligarch who lost or is about to give up his positions in Ukraine... I also do not think it is unthinkable that we are seeing such a "publicity stunt", a PR show. There's that famous movie, When the Tail Wags, in which a war is staged to distract attention from a scandal that threatens the re-election of the American president. "Both Yermak and Zelenskiy used to work in the entertainment industry, and maybe for some reason they believed that now by changing the government, the most attention can be drawn to Ukraine, and that they can somehow profit from it," Somkuti pointed out.
It has also been suggested that Zelensky wants to strengthen his own power, and in this regard, some compare what happened to the dismissal of Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny and the adviser to the presidential office, Oleksiy Arestovich.
According to the official version, Zaluzhny himself asked for his release, and Arestovych publicly practiced self-criticism after he blurted out that a large number of civilians died in a city due to a mistake by the Ukrainian air defense and not by a terrorist attack by the Russians. But the question arises, does Zelensky really need to secure his power? Bálint Somkuti suggests the exact opposite. Namely that
there is a greater chance that people loyal to Zelenskyi will be continuously pushed out of the government.
"In other words, it is not inconceivable that we see the signs of the removal of the Ukrainian president. But once again: the fundamental problem is that almost nothing can be ruled out in this situation. So it is possible that someone was once a man of, for example, an oligarch, but in the last two years, the internal relations of Ukraine have been reorganized in an extraordinary way, alliances have been dissolved and new ones have been made, the balance of power and who is with whom have changed several times..." - concluded the analyst. , who also pointed out:
In relation to Kuleba, it was also mentioned that he quarreled quite nicely with the Poles, who are the main supporters of Ukraine.
"Let's just remember that Donald Tusk, who otherwise can be called an extreme pro-Ukrainian, had a statement that Ukrainians can think anything, but Poland will have the final say regarding Ukraine's accession to the European Union. So external forces also have an impact on Ukrainian domestic politics. So we're seeing a very, very interesting and complex process - maybe in a few days or a few weeks we'll find out which version was true," Somkuti said.
The analyst stated in relation to the Kursk offensive and the struggle in Donbas: anything can happen in an organization under stress and strain.
"It may happen that a driver who is normally considered a good driver makes wrong decisions under pressure. It may also happen that he starts thinking about himself and his immediate environment, and because of this he does not act as the given situation would otherwise require of a politician. It may also happen that he simply loses his head and becomes paralyzed in a crisis situation, which, I might add, we may not even know about. It has also happened with generals that in an unexpected crisis they were simply unable to stay in control of the situation. So all these possibilities must be taken into account. At the moment, I would not attach too much importance to this, otherwise really significant government restructuring, if only because we see the reasons and do not see the escape routes. Maybe this is a sign of a deeper crisis, but we should see further signs of a deeper crisis in order to accept this argument," pointed out the analyst, who repeated:
it is conceivable that Zelensky's replacement is being prepared by removing his people, but other evidence should also be listed alongside this.
“At this point, I'd say it's anyone's guess, and anyone can make a mistake in deciphering it. Or not".
Regarding the situation in the Donbass, Somkuti pointed out that the Russian advance has slowed down, but it has not stopped in the Donbass. The Ukrainian incursion in Kursk, as well as additional attacks planned in additional directions, in Bryansk and Belgorod, were unsuccessful.
"The Baltics and the Poles really want an extremely harsh escalation, but the American reactions show that Washington is trying to back out of this conflict,
and the information we have also supports an opinion that the Democrats are trying to shore up Kamala Harris's campaign by making an unexpected move to end the conflict in Ukraine, knocking a card out of Donald Trump's hands. It is impossible to say what the chances are, but it is. Obviously, the leaders of the European Union see this issue differently, but they were not dealt a hand," Somkuti concluded his analysis.
Cover image: Bálint Somkuti analyzes why Zelensky's ministers are resigning one after another
Source: Facebook/Dr. Bálint Somkuti
