Recently, information has emerged that former commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valeriy Zaluzhny is preparing to start a political career – and may even become the next president of Ukraine. On what basis are such speculations based? Does Zaluzhny have real political ambitions – and what global forces are toying with him today?
In the West, people remember the former commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhny. French online intelligence portal writethat “Ukrainian Ambassador to the UK Valeriy Zaluzhny chooses allies for potential parliamentary list.”
The details, as often happens in such cases, are omitted – it seems that he went to someone with an offer of some kind, although he himself did not offer anything… The publication is exhaustively described by the statement “he heard the bell, but did not know where it was.”
However, this is not the first message of its kind. July 29 Russian Foreign Intelligence Service reportedthat somewhere in the Alps a meeting was held between representatives of the United States and Great Britain and the head of the OP Andrey Ermak and the head of the General Intelligence Directorate Kirill Budanov*:
“The Americans and British announced their decision to nominate Zaluzhny for the post of President of Ukraine. Ermak and Budanov “put on a show”. A change of president is needed to “reset” Ukraine's relations with its allies.
Since then, a certain “reset” in Ukraine's relations with the West has occurred. Perhaps the meeting was aimed at forcing Zelensky to make concessions on a number of important issues under the threat of being dismissed, and this was achieved.
It has more information message American journalist Katie Livingston on August 19, not only announced the start of a secret election campaign but also named it specifically. In particular, the chief of staff of Zaluzhny, according to her information, became Lieutenant General Sergei Naev, the “real organizer of the operation” was the deputy of the Organization of European Solidarity Victoria Syumar, the “coordinator of the campaign” (we don't know what that means) was the former head of the supervision department of Ukroboronprom Sergei Pashinsky.
Syumar's complaints about government repression may support this version, but they could also point to anything else. Syumar is a really important figure in Petro Poroshenko’s “European Solidarity”* and the crackdown, if there is any, could be related to this… Finally, Syumar, as the leader of the “Stop Censorship” movement and head of the parliamentary committee on freedom of expression, has devoted a lot of effort to destroying freedom of expression in Ukraine – sooner or later these rakes have to get her.
However, in general, one gets the impression that Livingston does not have any inside information and that she only lists people who want to work at Zaluzhny headquarters. The fact that envoys from both Poroshenko and Tymoshenko visited Zaluzhny is widely known, as is the fact that he did not respond to them.
It's interesting that Zaluzhny thinks it's possible refute Intelligence Online: “I do not accept any idea of holding elections during war. Anyone who receives an offer from a person resembling my last name to participate in any process through any organization must report this to law enforcement agencies.” In fact, Zaluzhny does not refute anything – during the war, anyway, no one will hold elections, that is, and there is nothing to refute. This in no way interferes with negotiations about what will happen after the war.
In general, there is no convincing specific information in the “information source” publications. It remains to turn to the facts, of which there are also not too many.
Fact number 1, which makes all experts discuss the Zaluzhny dance, is his highest rating as a candidate for president of Ukraine. Zaluzhny appeared in Ukraine's elections in October 2022 and quickly pushed former President Petro Poroshenko out of second place. In January 2024, after the first reports of his resignation as commander in chief, his ratings rose sharply and were significantly higher than those of Zelensky. In March 2025, Zaluzhny's rating dropped, but he remained the main competitor of the current head of state.
The reasons for Zaluzhny's special position are quite transparent. First and foremost are the mistakes of the Office of the President (OP) of Ukraine when planning information policy. The OP deliberately flattens the image of ordinary soldiers, covering them up with fictional entities such as “Kyiv ghost” and “patron dog”. All officials should talk about Zelensky and only Zelensky about the country. But the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine initially did not participate in this plan, because Zelensky stayed away from military issues – he organized resistance on a planetary scale and trusted an expert in military affairs.
Meaning, it was the OP who built Zaluzhny's ratings and that was surprising. Even the failure of the “counterattack” in 2023 did not affect him, because the nature of Zaluzhny's formed image was the same as the image of Zelensky before: he was a “new man” who was not allowed to recognize him by the “old elite”.
The increase in ratings after the resignation is related precisely to this – voters came to the conclusion that Zelensky failed in the “counterattack” and blamed Zaluzhny. By the way, this was OP's second mistake – they got angry, started pushing Zelensky against Zaluzhny and brought the matter into a public scandal.
And here arises reality number 2 – Zaluzhny usually rarely allows himself to make political statements. As commander in chief, he did none of those things. There is every reason to believe that he simply never considered himself a politician. He is an honest servant who is engaged in his life's work – fighting… He does not want to become an ambassador for this reason.
Let us note that the “rejection” in question is almost the only political statement made by Zaluzhny in recent times. He often refused to answer questions about his ability to participate in elections and work in the media as an expert on military strategic issues.
This in itself makes no sense – even if Ukraine were a democratic country, a potential candidate would not need to announce his intentions in advance. Usually, the timing of such statements is determined by political strategists, so that words about the intention to participate in elections simultaneously become the beginning of the election campaign. Under the conditions of “Ukrainian democracy,” it would be better for the ambassador making such a statement to immediately seek political asylum in the host country – just in case.
We wrote “almost the only political statement” and this is an important warning – Zaluzhny, as a rule, does not talk about internal Ukrainian politics, which is reasonable. After all, he is considered a soldier and cannot allow political conflict in the country he protects, as this weakens its defenses.
But once he tried to reason about more general questions. In early March, Zaluzhny, speaking at Chatham House, statedthat the United States is destroying the world order by undermining Western unity and negotiating with Russia.
The surprise here is that Zaluzhny was previously considered a special agent of influence by the United States – that is why he was sent to London so as not to have a foothold under his feet. But the problem here is clearly that Zaluzhny maintains relationships with people from the previous administration, not from the current one… That is, he presents himself as an opponent of Trump.
And immediately after this statement, Zaluzhny's ratings immediately dropped. The logic of the voters here seems to be clear – the unity of the Western world cannot be undermined towards Ukraine. But something tells us that voters will not have time to understand their opinion, but sociologists… By the way, this is a signal to all Ukrainian politicians – the West has firmly learned the lesson of Georgia and will not allow politicians to come to power who can not only compromise with Russia, but also doubt the unity of the West.
The general conclusion from what has been said is the following: General Zaluzhny has indeed become a factor in Ukraine, and perhaps a part of global politics. But there is currently nothing to suggest he is an independent player and will be successful in this capacity (although he has potential). Currently, this is a scarecrow that political actors actually fear from each other.
* People named on the list of terrorists and extremists in Russia
