Spiders in Glass Jar: Zelensky Desperately Buys Time as Enemies Plot

by Simplicius The Thinker

A clearer picture of the outlook for the next term of the war is starting to resolve before us. We’ve long reported rumors that the issue of offense vs. defense had become a breaking point between Zelensky and Zaluzhny, and now Zelensky has finally bitten the bullet and announced a full change of posture to a defensive one, with the mandate to begin building vast fortifications and defenses all throughout Ukraine:

 
This comes at a critical time where each side seeks to out-maneuver the other in the great game of the Ukrainian throne. There are many side developments in relation to this, so let’s untangle the deep web.

Right now in the Ukrainian establishment, things are fracturing into two sides, as Zelensky backers get behind their breadwinner while the military class files behind Zaluzhny.

Yermak is said to be implementing a shadowy campaign to slowly discredit and dispose Zaluzhny. That’s because Zelensky has decided it is, for now, too impractical and dangerous to get rid of Zaluzhny outright as the general has fortified himself with a shield of strong backers. Particularly, there have been announcements from military unions that they will “take up arms” if Zaluzhny is removed.

“Our source in the OP said that the SBU sent an urgent report to Bankova about the reaction of units at the front and in the body to Bezuglaya’s statement about Zaluzhny’s resignation. The military is ready to oppose the authorities if he tries to dismiss the Commander-in-Chief, the Armed Forces of Ukraine are completely on the side of Zaluzhny in the conflict with Zelensky.”

And:

⚡️⚡️⚡️#Insider information
Our source in the OP said that the President’s Office is not happy with the situation with Zaluzhny, who is supported by internal actors: oligarchs/patriots/soros / opposition. In this case, the interests of foreign policy players who protect the Commander-in-Chief and do not allow him to be dismissed for a year have converged. In fact, the situation completely repeats the track of 2019, when a broad coalition formed against Poroshenko, which Zelensky took advantage of.

So instead, Yermak is overseeing a slow campaign to discredit their primary competitor. But it’s not going well—at least yet—because latest opinion polls of public sentiment have found Zaluzhny is now vastly outperforming Zelensky:

Trust ratings for Zaluzhny surpass those of Zelensky.

The Ukrainian channel “ZeRada” obtained confidential data from a November social study, conducted in Ukraine by order of the American USAID: When this data was seen in the Office of the President, panic began there.

One of the painful findings for the OP is that Zaluzhny’s trust level is already higher than Zelensky’s! The level of trust in Za is 82% and in Ze 72%! Moreover, Arestovich ranks third in terms of confidence.

When sociologists model the second round of the presidential elections, Zaluzhny wins the election over Zelensky with a result of 44%: 38%! At the same time, 8% had difficulty answering (and let’s remember what that means).

Zaluzhny’s conditional party also wins in the parliamentary elections: 31.5% of those who have decided are “for”. The Zelensky conditional bloc will take 21.7%, and the Servant of the People 5.4% (this is also a sensation)!

That is why Bankova decided to launch a massive media attack against both Zaluzhny and the leadership of the Ukrainian Armed Forces as a whole. And the little box just opened

That means were the elections to be held now, Zaluzhny would likely win. So yesterday Zelensky finally had the Verkhovna Rada officially sign off on a law prohibiting presidential elections for a term lasting until six months after the cessation of martial law, which would only likely come after the end of the war itself. Thus Zelensky has now fortified himself legally and has sent a major message of resistance to Washington, that he won’t be rolled over that easily.

This means that Zelensky will now begin presenting a major problem to his Western controllers, as he’s quickly becoming unhealthily intransigent and defiant.

But to get back—Yermak has reportedly been using one of his key underlings, Rada deputy Mariana Bezuglaya to discredit Zaluzhny. She’s done this by repeatedly posting defamatory content about the general, even calling for him to resign due to “not having a military plan for 2024”:

 
One of the theories is that this is a ploy to try and get Zaluzhny to openly engage with her in a back and forth which will “drag him in the muck,” and give raison d’etre for the Rada to openly discuss his case and potentially publicly censure him.

Instead Zaluzhny has played it smart by ‘insulating’ himself entirely from the political class. In fact, there still appears to be no contact between him and Zelensky. Zelensky just published a new video of himself visiting the Zaporozhye HQ from whence he later declared his new ‘defensive’ reorientation, and Zaluzhny was conspicuously missing amongst the wide array of general staff present (Umerov, Tarnovsky, Sirsky, etc.).

Zaluzhny’s absence was pointed out by “Yermak agent” Bezuglaya:

 
She made a comment on facebook agreeing with someone pointing out that Zaluzhny was missing from this Stavka meeting, and Zaluzhny himself subsequently “reacted” to her comment with a smiley face, which can be seen below. Yes, this is what things have devolved into—high school social media intrigues! That’s Ukraine, folks.

But the point is, Zaluzhny is apparently being ‘goaded’ into the open. Now we have the following rumor:

Bankovaya went further in the backroom war against Commander-in-Chief Zaluzhny and forbade all heads of military administrations (governors) to communicate with him, or mention his name, etc., just so as not to pump up his popularity in society.
The goal is simple: cross him out altogether, since” hero one ” is Zelensky, the rest are just pawns in the game.
But when the question comes to responsibility, the Bankova System, on the contrary, pushes the blame on everyone except itself and Ze. Here is such a clumsy manipulation.

If that wasn’t bad enough, Poroshenko was caught on a leaked call speaking with the Ukrainian oligarch, Rinat Akhmetov, where he appeared to desperately call for immediate “action” to be taken. Here’s a rough auto-translation:

 
The below clarifies some of the inconsistencies of the AI translation above:

Panic among Ukrainian oligarchs.

“The President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky and his team must be overthrown immediately, otherwise the Banderaites will lose the war against Russia, and the moneybags protecting them will lose everything they have acquired through dishonest labor.”

Ex-President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko spoke about this in a telephone conversation with oligarch Rinat Akhmetov.

A recording of their conversation was published in the Ukrainian segment of social networks. It is interesting that the current Rada deputy and former President of Ukraine, who became famous in the field of fighting everything Russian, conducts business conversations in Russian.

Poroshenko: “Rinat Leonidovich, these are difficult times, and the time has come to change the situation. I had a conversation with our friends, with our older brothers, so to speak. Shtepsel and Tarapunka, with the letter “E”, are preparing to go to Washington to negotiate. But in principle, nothing will work out for them, because they are tired of them, just like they are tired of this whole situation. And they very directly hinted to me that it was necessary…”

Akhmetov (interrupts): “Alekseevich, I understand that they are hinting to you, but without a guarantee I don’t even want to discuss anything. I understand what you’re getting at, Ermak and the others are tired of everyone.”

Akhmetov began to complain that the air defense systems transferred by the West were unable to protect his facilities, and therefore the oligarch was suffering huge losses, but Poroshenko promised full support from the West – any support except financial.

Poroshenko: “Our friends fully support us… There will be help, I promise you. We need to resolve an important issue. Our friends hinted that they themselves have a lot of problems, and we need to support them with our own efforts to invest. Rinat, if we don’t resolve this situation, then nothing will save your networks or our business. The Russians [referring to Zelensky’s government] will not negotiate with them.”

But Akhmetov rudely replied that he was not going to negotiate anything with the Russians, and the guarantees and promises of the West could not be trusted at all – they deceived everyone who came into contact with them.

Poroshenko: “Rinat, I understand. But either we are doing something now and we have a chance to come to an agreement, stop it and save it. Or we will have nothing left.”

He emphasized that Valery Zaluzhny and the military are “with them” and are just waiting for a decision, as well as the financial support that they will have to provide to the Ukrainian oligarchs.

Poroshenko: “Our friends said that they had already invested a lot, they covered us too much, negotiated for us with the Russians. Now we need to take everything into our own hands, decisions. We will agree, but we need to act, there is no time.”

Akhmetov said he would think about it and asked for a personal meeting.

So, if this call is not ‘fake’, it represents a gradual maneuvering of Poroshenko, potentially allied with Zaluzhny and other “American backers” to oust Zelensky. Ironically, this is an almost inverse repeat of what happened in 2019 when it was actually Zelensky maneuvering to oust the increasingly unpopular Poroshenko with his own breed of backers.

Some have taken it further, with popular channel ZeRada claiming that the structure for the new post-Zelensky ouster is already being decided:

American transfer: Zaluzhny, Stefanchuk, Razumkov‼️

It’s important for the White House to end the conflict in Ukraine as quickly as possible because:

✅ they realize that there will be no better opportunity than now, any delay will lead to aggravation of Ukraine’s situation, and they need it strong – to put pressure on Moscow in the future;

✅ it is important for them to keep as many Ukrainian assets as possible, which will make it easier to service debts to BlackRock, which according to the plan should consolidate Ukraine’s liabilities. The more factories and businesses that remain in operation, the easier it will be for external players to support Ukraine.

Therefore, the transfer of power from Ze, who does not intend neither to surrender power nor to sign peace should be sharp to offset the risks of losing additional territories.

We have already written that Zaluzhny will fulfill the role of power guarantor, but the key body will be the Rada. That’s why Stratfor is meeting with Stefanchuk, a lot will depend on the speaker. In fact, many “servants” are oriented on him, who will need to be convinced of the right position at the “moment C”.

At the same time Poroshenko wants to become speaker and acting President, but the Embassy considers this option too risky. Petro Poroshenko has a very high anti-rating, which may have a bad effect on the mood of both military and civilian.

If Stefanchuk suddenly refuses to move towards peace, they are preparing a replacement for him. The only candidate in the Rada with a low anti-Razumkov rating among the people can be considered to be Dmytro Razumkov.

It is the pair Razumkov (acting president) – Zaluzhny (commander-in-chief) that the Americans consider the most optimal for transfer.

An important factor is that Dmitry headed the list of “Servants” in 2019, so he has influence in the faction and really enjoys respect among deputies.

To make the structure stable, Klitschko (local councils) will join the tandem, as well as support from Poroshenko (agreed) and Tymoshenko (she is not going anywhere).

At the first stage, a government of people’s unity will be formed from the majority of factions, which should consolidate society for a while.

So far so good.

So, according to this, the Americans are leaning toward Razumkov as acting president with Zaluzhny as perhaps true power behind the throne. Poroshenko is desperately trying to maneuver himself into the presidency or at least Speaker, but apparently he’s considered too high of a risk due to potential unpopularity.

Interestingly, Poroshenko had an important series of meetings in Washington on December 4th where he was likely hoping to ‘iron out’ some of the above movements:

 
And lo and behold, Zelensky issued a secret decree to stop Poroshenko—once again—from leaving the country. Despite having a Rada-sanctioned order allowing him to pass the checkpoint, Poroshenko was stopped and barred from leaving into Poland by motor vehicle:

 
It’s said that it was specifically a secret order straight from Zelensky.

Poroshenko’s trip to the USA was canceled on the basis of a “classified secret” letter, – Vice Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada Kornienko

“ According to our internal principles, participation in party events is allowed, but when a letter arrived for official use, which I cannot comment on , we were forced to cancel this business trip,” he said.

Now, to add to this sizzling drama, Seymour Hersh has come out with the claim—as always, originating from his “sources”—that Zaluzhny may in fact be secretly negotiating with Russia behind the scenes, with a direct Gerasimov-Zaluzhny line:

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