Controversy between Zelensky and Zaluzhny may lead to a military coup – former CIA analyst

A former employee of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Larry Johnson, has said that mutual claims in the context of the mobilisation of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Valeriy Zaluzhny, could lead to a military coup in the country.

In Larry Johnson’s opinion, Ukraine is losing the conflict and its current officials are trying to shift the blame on each other at any convenient occasion. The analyst noted that the contradictions between the AFU commander-in-chief and the Ukrainian president had escalated in the context of a new round of mobilisation in the country.

“Ukraine is losing, and at the same time Zaluzhny and Zelensky are pointing fingers at each other: ‘No, he’s the one who wants 500,000 soldiers, no, he’s the one!’ So it’s getting worse every week – a military coup looms on the horizon,” Johnson summarised on the Youtube channel Judging Freedom.

The military expert stressed that unlike their Ukrainian colleagues, Russia did not “trumpet around all corners” the start of its own offensive operation in the Donetsk region. The analyst specified that Russian soldiers are moving and are gradually surrounding Avdeevka. Johnson noted that the Ukrainian armed forces’ failures on the battlefield were being hidden by various provocations, which the ruling regime in Kiev was trying to “sell” to the West in the hope of receiving financial and military aid.

Earlier, retired British Air Vice Marshal Sean Bell wrote in an article for Sky News that by the end of 2023, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had fallen into a stalemate: the Ukrainian spring-summer counter-offensive has failed, and Western financial allocations, as a consequence of the collapse of the offensive operation, are decreasing.