6 Feb, 2024 12:42
Ukraine’s top general sparing neo-Nazis from frontline slaughter – ex-CIA analyst
Valery Zaluzhny may find allies in radical nationalists in his standoff with President Vladimir Zelensky, Larry Johnson says
Ukrainian President VladimirZelensky could lose his job before General Valery Zaluzhny,the nation’s top military commander, considering that the latter is backed by people with guns, former CIA analyst Larry Johnson has argued.
Last week, local media reported rumors that Zelensky had sacked Zaluzhny, before the president’s office denied the claim. However, Ukrainian and foreign media still described a tense meeting between the pair, with the general reportedly rejecting a call to resign voluntarily and thepresident hesitating to remove him under pressure from the military top brass. Zelensky has since told the press that a major overhaul of the military command was imminent.
Johnson discussed the dramatic events on Sunday with Nima Alkhorshid, the Brazil-based host of the YouTube channel, Dialogue Works. The situation resembles a soap opera or a game of musical chairs and would be hilarious “if hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians weren’t dead and maimed,” he said.
The nation’s laws will not necessarily determine how tensions in the country’s leadership will be resolved, Johnson added.
”The guy with the gun usually wins and last time I checked Zaluzhny’s got more guns than Zelensky,” he said.
Comparing the two men, he said the generalshould not be seen as a “great guy.”
“I don’t want to present Zaluzhny as some sort of military genius or really a good-hearted man,” the commentator remarked.He is “a bit of a scumbag” who “embraces the neo-Nazi ideology,”Johnson claimed.
”He’s been very careful to not insert the most ideologically driven troops – the Azov and the Kraken units – into the front lineswhere they get killed, because he wants to preserve them. Instead, he is sending the cannon-fodder guys.”
Whether or not Zaluzhny shares the radical nationalist ideology of the Ukrainian far-right is hard to tell from his public statements, but he is believed to haveconsiderable supportin those circles.
A post was published on social media last Friday by Andrey Stempitsky, a Ukrainian military leader who is also a prominent member in the nationalist Right Sector group. It featured a photo of him givingZaluzhny an honorary ID, certifying the general as the first member of Stempitsky’s brigade. A portrait of Stepan Bandera, a Ukrainian nationalist leader and Nazi collaborator, was in the background of the image.
Zelensky was elected presidentin 2019 on a platform ofreconciliation with rebelsin the east and with Russia, butthreats of violence by the extreme right made his office pull backfrom early attempts to deliver on that promise.
https://www.rt.com/russia/591948-zaluzhny-zelensky-nationalist-allies/