(Reuters) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy revealed in an interview on Sunday that he is considering replacing several senior officials, not just in the military, to determine who will lead the country.
There has been speculation in Ukraine about the possible dismissal of the commander of Ukraine’s military, Valery Zaluzhnyi. The president and Zaluzhnyi have been in disagreement over the conduct of the nearly two-year-old Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“It is a question of the people who are to lead Ukraine,” Zelenskiy told Italian state RAI television in a voiceover. His comments were in response to a question about Zaluzhnyi.
“A reset is necessary, I am talking about a replacement of a number of state leaders, not only in the army sector. I am reflecting on this replacement. It is a question for the entire leadership of the country,” he added.
To introduce the necessary changes, Zelenskiy stated, “I have in mind something serious that does not concern a single person but the direction of the country’s leadership.”
“If we want to win we must all push in the same direction, we cannot be discouraged, we must have the right and positive energy, negativity must be left at home. We can’t take on giving-up attitudes,” Zelenskiy emphasized.
Differences between the president and Zaluzhnyi have emerged since a Ukrainian counteroffensive launched last year made limited gains against Russian forces along the 1,000-km (600-mile) front line in Ukraine’s south and east.
Zaluzhnyi gave an interview to a Western media outlet in November in which he said the war had entered a new phase of attrition, drawing a rebuke from President Zelenskiy.
Last week, as speculation over his dismissal intensified, Zaluzhnyi presented his case in a commentary for CNN, advocating for new electronic means of warfare and criticizing certain Ukrainian institutions for hindering the country’s ability to build an effective fighting force to match Russian numerical superiority.
(Reporting by Gianluca Semeraro, Editing by Ron Popeski and Nick Zieminski and Diane Craft)
