In September 2022, SSU attempted to conduct searches at Zaluzhnyi’s command post, - AP
Former Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and Ambassador to the United Kingdom Valerii Zaluzhnyi spoke for the first time about the Security Service of Ukraine's search of the command post in 2022, as well as his political ambitions.
He made these statements in an interview with AP News, according to Censor.NET.
Politics
Journalists note that Zaluzhnyi refused to discuss his political ambitions because he does not want to risk damaging national unity during the war with Russia.
Zaluzhnyi said that in the spring of 2025, a "fairly well-known" American political consultant approached him with an offer of assistance.
AP sources claim that it was Paul Manafort.
"I thanked him for paying attention to me, but said that I did not need his services," Zaluzhnyi said.
Tension with Zelenskyy
According to Zaluzhnyi, tensions between him and Zelenskyy arose shortly after Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022. Disputes often flared between them over how best to defend the country.
Search of the command post
Tensions reached a boiling point later that year when dozens of Ukrainian internal intelligence agents stormed Zaluzhnyi's command post.
The situation described took place in mid-September 2022, when Ukraine launched an effective counteroffensive in the northeast.
"Zaluzhnyi, then army commander, emerged from a tense meeting at Zelenskyy's headquarters and headed back to his office in Kyiv.
Hours later, dozens of agents from Ukraine’s security service showed up at Zaluzhnyi’s office to search the premises, Zaluzhnyi said. Over a dozen British officers were there at the time. The Ukrainian agents did not say what they were looking for, according to Zaluzhnyi, who says he prevented them from rifling through documents and computers," the publication writes.
In the presence of SSU employees, he called Andrii Yermak and warned that he was ready to call in the military to stop this and protect the command centre.
AP journalists contacted the Office of the President and the SSU for comment, but they declined to comment on the story.
"Zaluzhnyi then phoned the head of the security service at the time, Vasyl Maliuk, to ask what was happening. Maliuk said he knew nothing about the raid and promised to look into it," the publication recounts.
Later, Zaluzhnyi says, it became known that two days earlier, the SSU had applied to the Kyiv District Court for a search warrant for the same address. According to a court document obtained by the AP, the agency intended to search a strip club allegedly run by a criminal organisation.
But the strip club mentioned in the statement had been closed at that location even before Russia's full-scale invasion, two employees working at the club's new location told the AP.
Zaluzhnyi believes that the search warrant was a pretext and that the SSU could hardly have mistakenly identified the location of the country's main military command centre.
The situation passed quickly, but the differences between Zaluzhnyi and Zelenskyy regarding the defence of Ukraine remained. According to the former commander-in-chief, he often disagreed with the president's military strategy.
