TIME has published an article detailing the issues Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is facing in relation to the ongoing war with Russia, including the situation on the front, international support, and Ukraine\u2019s fight against corruption. The article\u2019s subheading on TIME\u2019s cover reads: “The Lonely Fight of Volodymyr Zelensky [sic]”.<\/p>\n
Source<\/strong>: TIME<\/a><\/p>\n Details<\/strong>: Simon Shuster, the author of the feature, wrote that public support for Ukraine in the US has been dwindling for the past several months, and Zelenskyy\u2019s most recent visit to Washington, DC, has failed to change that.<\/p>\n During the visit, Zelenskyy felt “exhaustion” from the “persistent need to convince his allies that, with their help, Ukraine can win,” Shuster wrote. “Nobody believes in our victory like I do. Nobody,” Zelensky told TIME in an interview after his trip. He said this “takes all your power, your energy”.<\/p>\n When Shuster asked a member of Zelenskyy\u2019s team during his latest visit to Kyiv how the Ukrainian president was feeling, they replied without hesitation: “Angry.”<\/p>\n The article goes on to say that Zelenskyy\u2019s “usual sparkle of […] optimism, his sense of humor, his tendency to liven up a meeting in the war room with a bit of banter or a bawdy joke” have not survived into the second year of the full-scale war. “Now he walks in, gets the updates, gives the orders, and walks out,” a longtime member of the president\u2019s team told Shuster.<\/p>\n Another unnamed member of Zelenskyy\u2019s team said that most of all, Zelensky feels betrayed by his Western allies, who, he feels, left him without the means to win the war, only the means to survive it.<\/p>\n “But his convictions haven\u2019t changed. Despite the recent setbacks on the battlefield, he does not intend to give up fighting or to sue for any kind of peace. On the contrary, his belief in Ukraine\u2019s ultimate victory over Russia has hardened into a form that worries some of his advisers. It is immovable, verging on the messianic,” Shuster wrote.<\/p>\n The article also recounts the problems Ukraine might face this winter if Russia renews its attacks on Ukraine\u2019s energy infrastructure, and the challenges the Ukrainian military might face with the arrival of winter.<\/p>\n But, Shuster wrote, Zelenskyy “has refused to accept that”. “Freezing the war, to me, means losing it,” Zelenskyy told Shuster.<\/p>\n Zelenskyy\u2019s close aide told Shuster: “We\u2019re not moving forward,” meaning the Ukrainian forces.<\/p>\n Some front-line commanders, he continued, have begun refusing orders to advance, even when they came directly from the Office of the President. “They just want to sit in the trenches and hold the line,” the aide said. “But we can\u2019t win a war that way.”<\/p>\n “I brought up these allegations to a senior military officer, and he responded that there’s not much room for commanders to question higher-ups’ orders. At one point in early October, he said, the political leadership in Kyiv demanded an operation to \u2018retake\u2019 the city of Horlivka, a strategic outpost in eastern Ukraine that the Russians have held and fiercely defended for nearly a decade. The answer came back in the form of a question: With what? \u2018They don\u2019t have the men or the weapons,\u2019 says the officer. \u2018Where are the weapons? Where is the artillery? Where are the new recruits?\u2019,” the author states.<\/p>\n \u2018In some branches of the military, the shortage of personnel has become even more dire than the deficit in arms and ammunition. One of Zelenskyy\u2019s close aides tells me that even if the US and its allies come through with all the weapons they have pledged, \u2018we don\u2019t have the men to use them.\u2019,” it is said in the publication.<\/p>\n The article also outlines the problems involving the fight against corruption. In particular, the author writes, “in recent months, the issue of corruption has strained Zelenskyy\u2019s relationship with many of his allies.” Instead, the White House has prepared for Ukrainians a list of anti-corruption reforms aimed at the very top of the state hierarchy.<\/p>\n “Those with means sometimes bribe their way out of service, often by paying for a medical exemption. Such episodes of corruption within the recruitment system became so widespread by the end of the summer that on 11 August Zelenskyy fired the heads of the draft offices in every region of the country,” the author asserts.<\/p>\n He notes that this decision was to demonstrate his commitment to the fight against bribery. But the move, the author quotes an unnamed officer, backfired as recruitment almost stopped without leadership. Dismissed officials also proved difficult to replace, partly because the reputation of draft offices was tarnished. “Who wants that job? It\u2019s like putting a sign on your back that says: corrupt,” said the source of the author of the material.<\/p>\n “At the start of the Russian invasion, Zelenskyy\u2019s mission was to maintain the sympathy of humankind. Now his task is more complicated. In his foreign trips and presidential phone calls, he needs to convince world leaders that helping Ukraine is in their own national interests, that it will, as Biden put it, \u2018pay dividends.\u2019 Achieving that gets harder as global crises multiply,” the author notes.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/TIME-cover-Zelensky-225x300.jpg\")
<\/a>He also said some in Zelenskyy\u2019s team are convinced that the president “deludes himself”. “We\u2019re out of options. We\u2019re not winning. But try telling him that,” one of Zelenskyy\u2019s closest aides told Shuster.<\/div>\n