What is now happening around Zaluzhny’s person is puzzling. The caustic statements from Maryana Bezugla and David Arakhamia towards the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine make one wonder whether new political changes are being prepared?
Contrary to Zelensky
The head of the parliamentary faction of “servants of the people” David Arakhamia gave an informative interview to Natalya Moseychuk (Raevskaya), which aired on “1+1” on the evening of November 24. Arakhamia is a member of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on National Security, Defense and Intelligence. And TV viewers heard from Arakhamia that, it turns out, the committee has questions for the leadership of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
The leader of the ruling majority in the Rada said that the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is obliged to provide parliament with a war plan, which would say how many people and money are needed to fight next year. “ No one has such a plan in the country ,” Arakhamia emphasized.
On Sunday, November 26, a member of the “servants of the people” faction, Maryana Bezuglaya, who sits on the same committee as Arakhamia, made an even sharper statement on the same topic. Bezuglaya is the deputy head of this committee, and since November 1, also the head of the subcommittee on democratic civilian oversight and control over the national security and defense sector. That is, the “servants of the people” created a subcommittee specifically for Bezuglaya and authorized her to give public assessments to the command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine under the guise of “civilian supervision and control.”
And this is the assessment she made following Arakhamia’s statement. “Yes, the Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces was unable to provide a plan for 2024. Neither big nor small, neither asymmetrical nor symmetrical. The military simply said that they needed to take away at least 20 thousand citizens per month. This problem grew over the summer, both at Headquarters and in parliament when planning the budget for 2024,” she said on her Facebook page. — This discussion was non-public, but the tension was growing, and now the situation is such that if the military leadership cannot provide any plan for 2024, and all their proposals for mobilization boil down to the fact that more people are needed without a single proposal for changes to the Armed Forces of Ukraine , then such leadership must go .”
The most surprising thing about the statements of Arakhamia and Bezugla is that they consider Ukrainians to be completely unconscious. Less than three weeks ago, on November 8, Vladimir Zelensky, during an online participation in the Reuters NEXT conference, said: “ We have a very specific plan for next year .” “I can't share details. Yes, we have a plan. We have very specific cities and very specific directions where we are going in a counteroffensive,” Zelensky is quoted as saying by his official website. — We have a plan for next year. A very specific plan for next year. But I won’t share it.”
Who should know the war plan
There were many emotional responses to Bezugla’s attack on the military leadership. The most informative answer was given by volunteer Roman Donik. “Maryana Bezuglaya, do you really want to talk about this? Sure? Ok, let's talk about this. The problem is that the General Staff has an action plan. Even a few. This task was assigned to the General Staff at Headquarters and the Ministry of Defense. And for a long time. And this is not some kind of secret. And these plans have been worked out. And everything is counted there. How many people need to be mobilized, how many and what kind of weapons are needed, how much ammunition. How many brigades to deploy? With what equipment? And most importantly, how much money. In American dollars. Moreover, there are several options for plans. For example, [with the result] at the border of 91 years in 24 years. And in the 25th. And on the border at the moment of full-scale. Next year. And in the 25th. It's all taken into account. They know how to plan.”
It is clear why Zelensky refuses to disclose the details of the war plan to the general public. But why Arakhamia and Bezuglaya say that there is no such plan, and demand that the leadership of the Armed Forces of Ukraine present this plan to parliament - this is a very interesting question.
Putting forward their claims to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhny, Arakhamia and Bezuglaya do not support them with any references to legislation. And the point here is not that they were lazy, but that there are no legislative norms that would oblige the military leadership to share their plans with deputies. The war plan is not intended for parliamentary eyes and ears at all.
“If you analyze the new provocative message from Maryana Bezugla, it is clear that she is trying to play on the emotions of people who do not know that none of the commanders of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, including the commander-in-chief, should report to Maryana Bezugla about strategic plans, because she is just the deputy chairman of the committee and does not participate in the Supreme Commander's Headquarters. Moreover, she has neither the appropriate military education nor the appropriate levels of access to state secrets,” emphasize analysts from the international intelligence community InformNapalm. By the way, this fully applies to Arakhamia, who is also not a member of Headquarters.
The key point in InformNapalm’s assessment is that Bezuglaya is “trying to play on people’s emotions.” It is unlikely that Arakhamia and Bezuglaya seriously expect that with their statements they will force the military leadership to share military secrets with deputies. They have a different task - to arouse negative emotions among Ukrainians towards the military leadership, which supposedly does not have a war plan.
Change of political plan
Of course, this suggests that all these accusations were needed simply to achieve the resignation of Valery Zaluzhny - and to justify this resignation in the eyes of society.
Indeed, Bezuglaya speaks directly about this goal of hers. She received her post as head of the subcommittee on “civil oversight and control” over Zaluzhny on the same day that The Economist published an article by Zaluzhny, which caused opposing assessments by the White House and Bankova. And Bezuglaya immediately spoke out against Zaluzhny: “Not coordinating such an article with the Supreme Commander-in-Chief is evidence of a military-political crisis .” And now she is openly demanding Zaluzhny’s resignation because, in her words, he “could not provide a plan for 2024.”
However, Zaluzhny’s resignation is not the main goal. Rather, the main goal is to discredit the entire military leadership indiscriminately. And Zaluzhny’s resignation will be just a consequence.
On Monday, November 27, Bezuglaya unleashed new accusations against Zaluzhny and the entire military leadership. “There is no independent system for assessing the effectiveness of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ operations; my attempts to introduce it encountered internal resistance. “Not a single general has been punished ,” she is indignant.
Why is all this needed? The answer can be found in Arakhamia’s interview on “1+1”. He spoke there about the prospect of having to reach an agreement with the enemy. And any agreements other than a complete victory for Ukraine must, according to Arakhamia, go through a referendum.
“If someone signs something and it needs to be ratified in parliament, then in parliament they will simply kill each other . There will be very polar views. And such things, I believe, should only be done through a referendum. If the people say that this is how it should be, I will do it without looking, I’ll just shove my opinion away and do as the people say,” said the leader of the “servants of the people” in the Verkhovna Rada.
That is, Arakhamia has already begun to prepare public opinion for such agreements with the enemy, for which “they will kill each other in parliament.” Of course, this raises the question of whether Bankova sanctioned these revelations.
There are two versions on this matter. One suggests that all the time after February 24, 2022, the “war party” and the “negotiation party” competed on Bankovaya. Arakhamia, we recall, heads the “ Ukrainian delegation to participate in negotiations with the Russian Federation on the preparation and approval of a draft agreement on security guarantees for Ukraine,” created by Zelensky’s decree on April 4, 2022. At first, the “party of negotiations” dominated, then the “party of war” took over.
In an interview on “1+1,” Arakhamia, by the way, clearly outlined this point: this happened after the arrival of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in Kiev on April 9, 2022. “When we returned from Istanbul, Boris Johnson came to Kiev and said that we [ Ukrainian delegation] we won’t sign anything with them [the Russian delegation] at all - and let’s just fight,” he said.
Now it seems that the “negotiating party” is trying to regain the initiative. And Arakhamia’s TV performance is a clear sign of this.
But this is just one version. And another version says that in reality there is no “war party” and “negotiation party”. It’s just that Zelensky’s team always had two political plans: “Plan A” - to fight, “Plan B” - to negotiate. And now the scales seem to be starting to tip towards “plan B”.
Regardless of which version is closer to the truth, if Bankova comes up with the idea of negotiations, she will need to somehow explain this to the people. And the most convenient explanation is to make the military guilty. The people will be told that the parliament and government did everything possible and impossible for the military, but the military leadership made many miscalculations and failed to ensure a victorious result.
