Retreating from the front, with a population increasingly feeling the war fatigue, ignored by the US, which has launched bilateral peace talks with Russia, Ukraine is also on the verge of a political crisis.
Internal tensions have increased so much that, despite the complicated context generated by the talks at the Munich Security Conference and the Russian-American meeting in Saudi Arabia, the Ukrainian opposition blocked the rostrum of the Supreme Rada, accusing the Presidential Administration of persecution and of betraying the national interest.
A pro-Western former president, sanctioned alongside Putin's friend
On February 13, President Volodymyr Zelensky approved the decision of the National Security and Defense Council to sanction a number of notable figures. The list includes the former President Petro Poroshenko, now an MP, several oligarchs – Igor Kolomoisky, once a Zelensky supporter, the billionaire Konstantin Yevago, the former co-owner of Privatbank Gennadiy Bogolyubov – and the former pro-Russian MP, accused of treason, Viktor Medvedchuk, a close friend of Vladimir Putin, who is also the godfather of his child.
Zelensky's decision to put Poroshenko on the list of pro-Kremlin oligarchs and politicians, while he has been financially supporting the Ukrainian army for years, was like a cold shower for the opposition. A few days earlier, the assets of Oleksii Poroshenko, the former president's son, were confiscated under the pretext that he did not go to the military commissariat when summoned. In December 2024, Oleksii was put on the international wanted list despite the fact that Petro Poroshenko claimed that his son had been living in London since 2019.
Petro Poroshenko, sanctioned by Zelensky and decorated by Syrsky
In the early days of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, former President Petro Poroshenko decided to abandon the dispute with Volodymyr Zelensky, arguing that the survival of the Ukrainian state was more important. During this period, the Poroshenko Fund sent over 50,000 drones, thousands of cars, equipment and humanitarian aid to the front.
While Zelensky included Poroshenko on the list of criminals, on the very next day, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Oleksandr Syrsky, decorated the former president with the Medal of Honor for Supporting the Army. In response, Zelensky has stated that the sanctions target individuals who, since 2014, have laundered money and taken significant funds out of the country. He has also added that if the funds are returned to the budget of Ukraine, the sanctions will be lifted.
The Ukrainian opposition, represented by the European Solidarity party, has demanded explanations from the government. Dozens of MPs blocked the Verkhovna Rada, asking why Petro Poroshenko was not being sued, based on clear evidence, and why sanctions were imposed on Ukrainian citizens. Petro Poroshenko has stated that all his accounts have been frozen, that he can’t even buy “a coffee at a gas station” and that he can no longer collect funds for the army as before.
An internal rupture at an important time for Ukraine
While the Russian and US delegations were discussing in Saudi Arabia a possible ceasefire in Ukraine, the Ukrainian opposition launched a real anti-Zelensky campaign on social media. In a Facebook post, "European Solidarity" accuses Zelensky of not caring about strengthening the armed forces, and publishes a photo of a cemetery full of graves of soldiers killed in the war, with the following caption: "Zelensky claimed on February 18, 2022 that we could upsize the army two to three times, but in this case we would not be able to build roads. In six days, the great invasion started.”
In another post the opposition claims that Zelensky is more cynical than Viktor Yanukovych, the president who fled to Russia, accusing him of laundering 300 million hryvnias (about 7 million euros) in a project to lease power plant ships from the Turkish company Karpowership to cover the deficit in the energy system of the southern regions.
The opposition's criticism of Zelensky was based on a series of narratives that can also be found in a different form in the pro-Kremlin media. In this context, political analyst Taras Chornovil, a former MP, has accused Zelensky of purchasing Russian reactors for power plants and blamed him for the continued degradation of the army and the inability to influence Trump's dialogue with Putin. The sanctions imposed on Poroshenko set off a real chain reaction...
Zelensky is criticized by the opposition, media and experts
The breaking of the media balance, which has become a tradition in Ukraine in the past three years, at such a crucial moment for the fate of the state aggressed by Russia, has amplified the false narratives promoted by the Russian propaganda about Zelensky's illegitimacy and Kyiv's guilt for the war, deepening the war fatigue. Coincidentally, this kind of false narrative, repeatedly debunked by Veridica, is now being taken up by the US President Donald Trump himself.
Yuri Haidai, an expert with the Kyiv Center for Economic Strategies, believes that Volodymyr Zelensky has opened Pandora’s Box : "Sanctions are harmful to unity, harmful to defense, harmful to the economy, harmful to how Ukraine’s image in Europe. Sanctions generate among politicians and capital owners a standing feeling of threat, of lack of security. This feeling pushes them towards extreme behavior."
The UDAR party of the Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko has expressed concern over the introduction of sanctions against an opposition member. The political party says that now, at a crucial moment for the country's fate, when difficult negotiations are underway to end the war, all forces should be gathered and strengthened. "The government continues to persecute mayors, imprison military personnel, destroy local self-government and violate laws, thereby restricting freedom of expression and democracy," a press release reads.
Ukrainian newspapers have also described the decision made by Zelensky's team to fight an opposition figure as a rash step that could negatively impact the domestic political situation. The Dumskaia news agency writes that external failures and the problems on the battlefield must somehow be covered up with a smokescreen, by finding an internal culprit.
Russian propaganda: an illegitimate president fights an extremist leader
Polls in Ukraine, conducted in the midst of the war with Russia, do not bring good news for the Presidential Administration either. A study conducted by the International Institute of Sociology in Kyiv shows that 24% of Ukrainians consider Petro Poroshenko a true leader of the opposition; he is followed by other politicians less known in the West.
As for the sanctions imposed on Poroshenko, 31% of citizens believe that they are an attempt by the authorities to distract society from the difficult situation on the front. 24% of Ukrainians perceive these sanctions as an attempt to eliminate the opposition from the political life, and 27% see them as an initiative of law enforcement agencies to punish the guilty. Therefore, 55% of Ukrainians do not believe Zelensky's justification for the sanctions. Undoubtedly, as a result of this decision, Zelensky has unleashed a number of issues that were forgotten or ignored since the full-time invasion was launched.
The Russian state media is using this internal conflict to discredit the Ukrainian authorities and promote the narrative about Zelensky’s illegitimacy. RIA Novosti wrote that Zelensky is forced to hold elections in the fall of this year in order to gain legitimacy and be elected at all costs, fighting with Petro Poroshenko. At the end of each news item published in the Russian media, the following note appears: “Petro Poroshenko – included by Rosfinmonitoring in the list of persons involved in extremist activities or terrorism.” Basically, the main narrative of the Kremlin-funded media is about the power struggle in Ukraine between an illegitimate president and an extremist, creating the impression that people are giving their lives in vain for the future of their country.
The need to ease the tension
If the measures are kept, this could create an atmosphere of distrust and frustration among the population, which is already dealing with the stress caused by the war. In such a situation, Ukrainians will feel increasingly tired and politically disoriented, and the authorities' messages encouraging resistance in the war with Russia may become ineffective. In the context of the war and, in particular, of important international discussions about the future of Ukraine, tension must be eased in order to get out of the looming political crisis that may be deepened by propaganda.
The question remains whether Zelensky's team understands this and whether there is sufficient political will in all camps to return to the national unity that cemented resistance in a war with a numerically and technologically superior enemy.
