(Yahoo) Volodymyr Zelensky’s popularity is falling and he will pay for his mistakes by eventually losing power, the mayor of Kyiv Vitali Klitschko has said.
In a startling rebuke of Ukraine’s president, Mr Klitschko told two interviewers that he considered Mr Zelensky to be increasingly isolated and autocratic.
“People see who’s effective and who’s not. And there were and still are a lot of expectations. Zelensky is paying for mistakes he has made,” he said in an interview with the Swiss news website 20 Minutes.
Support has fallen
Opinion polls in Ukraine have shown that both support for fighting against Russia and for Mr Zelensky have fallen, although they are still above 60 per cent.
Mr Klitschko blamed Mr Zelensky for ignoring warnings about the Russian invasion in February 2022, failures which he said nearly allowed the Russian army to capture Kyiv.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks during a joint press conference following a meeting in Kyiv, Ukraine – Shutterstock
“People wonder why we weren’t better prepared for this war. Why Zelensky denied until the end that it would come to this,” he said.
Mr Zelensky’s opponents have turned up the volume in recent weeks, accusing him of mishandling the counteroffensive, failing to stamp out corruption, dodging a presidential election scheduled for March and losing international political goodwill.
Time to end war
Last month, Oleskiy Arestovych, Mr Zelensky’s former adviser, said that he wanted to challenge the Ukrainian Presidency and that it was now time to start talking to the Kremlin about ending the war.
Mr Zelensky has pledged never to negotiate with the Kremlin.
Mr Klitschko said he agreed with Ukraine’s military commander-in-chief, Valery Zaluzhny, that the war had become a stalemate. Maj Gen Zaluzhny’s comments, in an interview with the Economist, had angered Mr Zelensky, who advised his top brass to stick to fighting and stay out of politics.
“Sometimes people just don’t want to hear the truth,” Mr Klitschko said.
While Mr Klitschko said that Mr Zelensky would ultimately lose power, he clarified it was important not to switch presidents while Ukraine was still at war with Russia.
“The President has an important function today,” he said.
