Friday, November 21, 2025
Zelensky: Engulfed in Scandals, Cabinet In Ruins, Can Ukraine Defy Trump’s “Surrender Deal”? OPED
By Prakash Nanda
Can President Volodymyr Zelensky withstand the mounting pressure from the Trump Administration to be a party to a reported Russian-American peace proposal, even as he is undergoing the most challenging test of saving wartime unity at home following what is said to be the most significant corruption scandal of his tenure?
The question is becoming increasingly difficult to answer with each passing day.
As of now, the scandal has cost him two ministers – Justice Minister German Galushchenko and Energy Minister Svitlana Hrynchuk. But this seems to be just the beginning, not the end.
The timing of the scandal could not have come at a worse time. With winter approaching and the Russian forces seemingly at an advantage, the British and the American media reported on November 19 stories of a secret 28-point ceasefire plan between the US and Russia that envisages Ukraine settling with its invader on crippling terms.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the proposal has been drafted by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. It says Kyiv must cede control of the eastern Donbas region, a long-standing Russian demand.
If the Daily Telegraph of London is to be believed, the region will not be ceded to Ukraine; it will retain legal ownership, and Russia would pay an undisclosed sum for its control.
However, Crimea would be recognized as Russian territory; Ukraine would have to reduce its military size and could not possess long-range missiles. It will not join NATO and will also block the deployment of foreign troops in its territory.
That this proposal has not been officially acknowledged by the Trump Administration as yet is a different matter, though the American President’s inclination toward such a plan to end the war is widely known.
Under normal circumstances, such news would have unified all the Ukrainians to stand behind Zelensky in protest, but that does not seem to be the case.
The corruption scandals in the last six months have made him as unpopular as ever, with his approval rating coming down 50 percent in opinion polls. In fact, as one writes this, Zelensky is due to face members of his parliamentary party, many of whom want more ministers to be sacked. On November 19, the Ukrainian parliament voted to dismiss the energy and justice ministers.
The scandal involves a group of individuals, including officials and businessmen close to the government, who allegedly used the state-owned Energoatom, Ukraine’s biggest electricity producer, for their own illegal enrichment.
Apparently, private companies paid kickbacks to informal “overseers” for the right to work with Energoatom, and this illicit cash was then laundered through the group’s financial network. The criminal scheme’s mastermind was supposedly none other than Timur Mindich, a former business partner of Zelensky.
Mindich is said to have organized a scheme in which at least $100 million was stolen over the last 15 months from the state nuclear power company through kickbacks to contractors.
When investigators bugged an apartment and an office in Kyiv where Mindich and others, including a government minister and an executive at the nuclear company, discussed divvying up hundreds of thousands of dollars and moving money to Switzerland and Israel.
The ripple effects of the revelations are said to be now spreading to affect a growing number of senior officials, including former defense minister Rustem Umerov, recently appointed Prime Minister Yulia Sviridenko, and others.
It is also alleged that former deputy prime minister Oleksiy Chernyshev, another member of Zelensky’s circle of confidantes (Zelensky’s wife is supposedly godmother to Chernyshev’s child), is accused of receiving cash from Mindich’s shadow coffers.
And to all this, there is the alleged involvement of people formerly associated with Andrei Derkach, the longtime head of Energoatom who defected to Russia in 2022 and is now a member of Russia’s upper chamber of parliament, the Federation Council.
Incidentally, tackling corruption has been a major issue ever since Zelensky assumed office in 2019. In fact, as the EurAsian Times had pointed out in July, the movement against Zelensky was marked with street protests after he had moved to neutralize the anti-corruption agencies, particularly the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), through a new law.
The protests, accompanied by Western criticisms, were so intense that he was forced to repeal the laws.
And all this was when the whole of last year (2024) was full of allegations of corruption involving Ukraine’s war efforts. The SBU had discovered a mass corruption scheme in the purchase of weapons by the country’s military, amounting to nearly $40 million (1.5 billion Ukrainian hryvnia).
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky listens his national anthem as he arrives at the Villacoublay air base, in Velizy-Villacoublay, near Paris on November 17, 2025. Ukraine’s President visits Paris on November 17, in a new bid to secure weaponry to defend his country against increasingly lethal Russian missile and drone attacks. His visit is part of a brief tour of his western allies. (Photo by Christophe Ena / POOL / AFP)
Of course, corruption has been a long-standing problem in Ukraine, which has posed a major hurdle to its membership in the European Union (EU).
Apparently, Ukraine scored 35 out of 100 points on the 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI).
In a recent study by Transparency International, Ukraine ranks 105th out of 180 countries. The fact remains that apart from Russia (154), Belarus (114), and Bosnia and Herzegovina (114), no other European country is perceived as more corrupt than Ukraine, according to this Index.
Be that as it may, allegations of graft, even if unfounded, have tarnished the reputation of the Zelensky government. So much so that now, thinking Ukrainians are not buying the standard logic of Zelensky’s supporters that all these allegations of corruption are being promoted by Russia-connected politicians, media groups, and oligarchs from influencing Ukrainian politics, and that the government is only taking countermeasures.
In fact, the present scandal has encouraged such cynicism that many Ukrainian soldiers have reportedly started deserting the armed forces. Abroad, it is making it harder for Ukraine to ask for the aid it needs, estimated at $100bn per year.
Accusations of corruption have also generated fear among political analysts that these could cause a realignment against Zelensky in Parliament, particularly when his political party, Servant of the People, wants more resignations, including that of Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak.
It is alleged that Yermak played a role in a scheme that saw the siphoning off of funds earmarked for building defenses to protect Ukraine’s vulnerable energy infrastructure from Russian air attacks to third parties. Yermak is also reportedly Zelenskyy’s point man for ties with Washington.
Of course, notwithstanding all these allegations, and with elections suspended under martial law, Zelensky cannot be voted out of office. His term was originally scheduled to end in May 2024, but the ongoing Russian invasion and the resulting martial law prevented the regularly scheduled presidential election from being held. He is expected to remain President as long as the Russo-Ukrainian War continues.
However, his lack of support in the Parliament may now weaken his ability to pass legislation. He was supposed to pass his budget this week, but the schedule has now been postponed.
Obviously, in the absence of adequate strength to pass legislation, Zelensky does not seem to be in a position of strength to make quick decisions, so vital during a war. Will he be able to resist the seemingly Trump-Putin proposal? Time will tell.Author and veteran journalist Prakash Nanda is Chairman of the Editorial Board of the EurAsian Times and has been commenting on politics, foreign policy, and strategic affairs for nearly three decades. He is a former National Fellow of the Indian Council for Historical Research and a recipient of the Seoul Peace Prize Scholarship.
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If Poms have their way, they'll encourage Ukraine to fight to the last Ukrainians, wakakaka.
