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Book by Time journalist Simon Shuster: In first year of war, President’s Office suspected Zaluzhnyi of thirst for power

залужний

The commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, told Time journalist Simon Shuster that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy did not need to understand military affairs too deeply, while the Presidential Office suspected the general of thirst for power in the first year of the full-scale war.

This is stated in an excerpt from the book by American journalist Shuster about Zelenskyy, published by The Telegraph, Censor.NET reports with reference to Ukrainska Pravda.

"During my own conversation with the general, he made it clear that politicians and generals are uncomfortable partners. Their relationship was at its best when Zelenskyy was trying to convince allies to provide weapons," Shuster writes.

"He needs to understand military affairs no more than medicine or bridge building," the author quotes Zaluzhnyi as saying.

Shuster writes that the president and his team allowed the journalist to spend a lot of time on Bankova Street during the first year of the full-scale invasion.

He notes that while Zelenskyy was considered a Ukrainian hero from the beginning of the war, fan pages dedicated to Zaluzhnyi had hundreds of thousands of followers, newspaper headlines called him the Iron General, people printed his image on T-shirts, and some officials in the Presidential Office suspected the general of being thirsty for power.

At the same time, Shuster writes, as the Russians retreated, Zelenskyy became more and more confident. He formed his own military priorities, and they did not always coincide with Zaluzhnyi's. Soon, the gap widened.

Yurii Tyra, whom Shuster calls a longtime friend of the president, learned about this split from the military, whom he met while delivering supplies to the front. "They keep asking me there: are you with the president or with Zaluzhnyi? Either with one or the other," he said.

According to Tyra, the general had a level of admiration there that no politician could achieve, and there was little the President's Office could do.