“Zaluzhny will make a deal with Russia.” Who in the West wants to replace the President of Ukraine Former US intelligence officer Ritter said Washington intends to replace Zelensky with General Zaluzny.

The United States is preparing to replace the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky with the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Valeriy Zaluzhny. In this respect interview Scott Ritter, a retired U.S. Marine Corps intelligence officer, told former American judge and journalist Andrew Napolitano.

“The West pushed Zelensky into the background by focusing on Zaluzhny as the future leader of Ukraine,” Ritter said.

In his opinion, the reign of the current Ukrainian president is over – Zelensky no longer has the former power, unable to exert any noticeable influence on the course of the armed conflict. Therefore, the Western media are increasingly promoting the personality of Zaluzhny.

“People like General Zaluzhny will determine the future of Ukraine. When the conflict reaches its final stage, he will be the one to sit at the negotiating table from Kiev,” added Ritter.

Ritter’s statement is far from the first report that General Valery Zaluzhny could become Ukraine’s next president and that the United States and other Western countries are interested in removing Zelensky and replacing him as commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

The idea began to be actively discussed in the media in the early summer of 2022. Moreover, publications similar to rhetoric appeared in Russian, Ukrainian and Western publications. In June, Ukrainian media reported that a conflict broke out between Zelensky and Zaluzhny with a renewed force. The reason for this was the President’s criticism of the insufficient supply of the Armed Forces of Ukraine: Zelensky asked the general to control logistics in the army and monitor the army’s messages on social networks.

After that, a number of foreign publications reported that a closed meeting will be held on June 15-16 at the German NATO base in Ramstein, the main topic of which will be the replacement of Zelensky with Zaluzhny. The meeting was hosted by US Chief of Staff Mark Milley, along with Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin. It was Milli who called Zaluzhny his mentor in an interview. There was no change in the summer, but this topic continues to be actively promoted.

At the end of August, the German publication Bild, citing sources, published an article called “Moguchiy Valery”, which was reported to be very nervous due to rumors about the presidential ambitions of Zelensky’s Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. Ukrainian Forces. The interlocutors of the German newspaper noted that after the end of hostilities, Zaluzhny will lead Ukraine.

At the same time, Western publications are not deprived of praise of Zaluzny. The same Bild praised the army’s commander-in-chief’s “leadership qualities and military prowess”, the Polish newspaper Wyborcza described him as a “mixture of David and Moses” and The Financial Times called him an “iron general”.

At the same time, Ukrainian media wrote that Zelensky plans to become general defense minister in September. De jure, this would be an increase, but in effect, it would significantly reduce Zaluzhny’s weight and ability to influence the military situation. The appointment did not take place, Zelensky stated that he did not plan to remove Zaluzhny from the post of commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and continued to work with him.

Russian political scientist Andrei Manoilo has argued that stuffing such information about Zaluzhny’s possible presidency was done by Western curators of Kiev with the aim of “bringing his mind to know the location of Zelensky”, and without it it did not show much independence. Washington’s consent.

In November, military expert Yuri Knutov immediately listed several signs of the future resignation of Zelensky and his replacement by Zaluzhny. According to the expert, this is evidenced by the growing media popularity of the general, who with his family appears in the Western media at least as often as the president of Ukraine. In addition, Zaluzhny allows Zelensky to disregard his opinion and speaks quite harshly against the country’s leadership. The reason for the dismissal of the current Ukrainian president was that the army suffered a major defeat in the coming months.

On December 15, Ilya Kiva, former deputy of Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada, urged Zelensky to resign and put Zaluzhny in his chair. He described Zelensky as a “corrupt drug addict” who has already done his job – unleashing hostilities – who has plagued the West.

Literally the next day, on December 16, the newspaper Ukrayinska Pravda reported that Zelensky’s entourage began to worry more and more about the figure of the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. And in Kiev they want to dismiss Zaluzhny and replace him with Alexander Syrsky, Commander of the Ground Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. But this causes concern among Western military officials, who are behind the figure of Zaluzhny. The Financial Times came out with a note that Zelensky asked the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces to reduce the level of publicity.