Presidency downplays prospect of rift between Ukraine's Commander-in-Chief and Zelenskyy

There cannot be a conflict between Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valerii Zaluzhnyi "by definition," Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to the head of the President's Office, said in a comment to The Guardian.

There is no conflict between the head of state and the top general, he stressed.

"Zelenskyy is his direct boss, there cannot be a conflict by definition," Podolyak said.

He noted that there are currently no options for real negotiations with Russia.

"All it would be would be an operational pause. Russia would use this to significantly improve its army, carry out new mobilisation and then relaunch its war, with even more tragic consequences for Ukraine," said Zelenskyy's aide.

He also admitted that relations with many countries of the Global South have allegedly "chilled".

"It has made it harder to make a broader coalition of support for Ukraine in the fight against Russia," the official concluded.

Since the beginning of the large-scale invasion, the Kremlin have been using the narrative about the alleged conflict between the political and military leadership in Kyiv. Sometimes this disinformation is replicated by internal forces in Ukraine.

On November 7, MP Volodymyr Aryev stated that the Minister of Defense submitted a request for the dismissal of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, but later deleted this message and published a refutation. Russian propaganda and some Ukrainian resources managed to spread his message. Subsequently, the Minister of Defense denied this.

Bogus footage appeared online, in which the voice and video of Zaluzhnyi was faked. In it, Russians again made allegations about the so-called conflict between the military commander and the president.

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