On Ukrainian Politics

2024 marks the return of contentious public politics to Ukraine.

Précis/TL;DR: in which we discuss developments in and the trajectory of wartime Ukrainian politics. As we approach the third year of Ukraine’s state of emergency, warnings signs of new and open political dissensus and contention are very evident. Ukraine’s period of war-enforced political quiescence is over, and a period of tension and (potential) crisis is quite plausibly the major story to track for 2024. A note on new publications rounds out the essay, as always.

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Public Politics in Ukraine, Deferred

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Ukrainian public politics has been largely shut down. This does not mean political decisions haven’t been made, or that politicians are suddenly absent from the country. Rather, it means that there has been a sharp curtailment in open political disagreement and contention in both the Ukrainian public sphere and across its political institutions. This is in line with Ukraine’s unprecedented emergency wartime situation.

With a major territorial war ongoing, significant swathes of the country under Russian occupation, and large-scale military and societal mobilization underway, the Ukrainian government closed the space for political contestation in favor of centralized decision-making and a militarized period of political exception. Of course, this is a common response to wartime conditions, in democracies as well as in authoritarian regimes.

Ukraine’s state of exception has seen a sharp centralization of power around President Zelensky and the presidential administration in the Bankova, widespread integration of the public into military hierarchies through direct mobilization and the establishment of irregular militias and civil defense forces, the continued domination of the parliament by Zelensky’s ruling party (Sluha Narodu, or Servant of the People), bans on pro-Russian political parties and media channels, coercive administrative decisions against perceived pro-Russian religious and civil society groups, the confiscation of assets and jailing of independent oligarchs, and other curtailments of civic rights and venues of public speech in general.

And of course, Ukraine decided to not hold parliamentary elections in the autumn of 2023 and will not hold scheduled presidential elections in spring 2024. This is what we mean by a state of emergency, which is both a constitutional-legal status in Ukraine as well as a description of the country’s de facto regime-level politics (we may also call the latter a ‘state of exception’).

I normally avoid openly normative statements in my posts here, but as my readership is largely American and pro-Ukrainian (me too!), I want to be clear here that I do not think any of this is a bad thing, per se. If I was Ukrainian, or in the Ukrainian government, I too would see a perfectly reasonable political need to shrink the space for political dissent in the face of invasion and aggression against a foreign enemy - whose stated goals, after all, are regime change and annexation.

Some of these specific decisions may or may not turn out to be ill-advised in the long-term, but overall there’s nothing inherently wrong with a restrictive turn to authoritative political control and enforced national unity given an existential war. The abstract ideal of political freedom is of no use if you are dead. And no Ukrainian is dying in the trenches for MPs in the Verkhovna Rada instead of something obvious like his family, his community, or a much more relevant abstraction like the Ukrainian nation itself. But I am also not Ukrainian, so I don’t feel insecure or reluctant to be open about what has in fact happened since 2022.

It’s always useful to remind observers that these sorts of steps are not unusual in wartime contexts. Although fairly few democracies have fought wars of this nature and survived, both Britain and France during WWI and WWII postponed elections and introduced wartime censorship alongside massive state coordination between the military, business, and broader society. The United States is arguably unique in having kept politics so open during our own Civil War, and had the benefit of never having enemy combatants on our soil during WWII that would have made holding elections inordinately difficult. Israel is currently also developing as another case of a democracy keeping politics formally open during active warfighting, but the contours of the Israel-Gaza War are quite distinct for now.

In any case, it has become clear that Ukraine’s period of political closure is coming to an end. While the resistance to holding elections remains, and will likely do so for some time, politics is back in its elite form. This is most notable with the political-military crisis of the last few weeks.

The Zaluzhny Question

Today’s political-military crisis has been brewing for some time. Since early last year, commentators in-country have noted the evident the friction between President Zelensky and the Commander-in-Chief of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, Valeriy Zaluzhny. Zaluzhny has been the apex military decision-maker in the war since its outset, and has built a reputation in Ukrainian society and within the Armed Forces itself as a highly popular military leader. Tensions between the president and the CIC have been rumored for a while, but the failure of the summer counteroffensive in 2023 has accelerated and deepened them considerably. At the end of January, Zelensky finally pulled the trigger and attempted to force Zaluzhny’s resignation.

The details of this event are still murky at present - it is still unclear exactly how developments proceeded and how much was intended (versus improvised) in the way it ended up leaking to the public. It seems that the final falling-out was due to disagreements over how many citizens would soon be needed to mobilize later this year. After the initial wave of speculation and the bad PR of its fallout, Zelensky eventually followed up with public comments suggesting an even wider reshuffle of the Ukrainian military hierarchy and perhaps the government as well. In his words, “A reset, a new beginning is necessary.” We will know soon enough exactly what this means, and how much had been planned ahead of time, and how much organically developed as this political crisis runs its course.

Most analysts in the West have been fairly negative about the situation, with many commenting on this from the perspective of ‘civil-military relations,’ a concept and research theme focusing on the study of armed forces and their relation to society. In this case, framing the current crisis as one of civil-military relations refers to the prerogative of civilian control of the military. And the assertion in this vein by many colleagues is that Zelensky is therefore in the right in changing wartime leadership. This is true, although it does not mean that such an action may not provoke backlash or any other sort of detrimental downstream impact.

But we should take a wider view. This is not only about civilian control, but about elite positioning in Ukrainian politics as well. The high popularity of Zaluzhny, and latent discontent with the overall course of the war, means that Zelensky is increasingly vulnerable to criticisms about his own leadership. And, as in any kind of pluralist political system, a criticism is much more powerful when there is a clear alternative figure in view. While Zaluzhny has been very careful to avoid any stated claim to a political ambition, he has nevertheless become a de facto alternative candidate should politics ever open up. And with the attempt at his ouster, Zelensky has made it more likely that the space of political contestation will expand regardless.

This is key, as from an institutional perspective, Ukraine is not going to open up formally. In fact, it is not obvious when institutional democratic politics will reemerge at all.

The Regime Question

It is a common trope among Russian commentators that Ukraine is run by a ‘Kyiv junta’ and is not a real democracy. This line has been standard since the success of the Euromaidan protests in 2014, and was not true then. It is still true that Ukraine is not a ‘junta’ in any useful sense of the word. It is no longer true that Ukraine is obviously a democracy, at least in the sense of a polity with regular elections that determine the composition of decision-making political offices at the top of the system. The reader may be surprised to hear, but we really needn’t worry about that too much, however.

Again, Ukraine’s wartime situation strongly militates against holding elections. Given the territorial occupation, massive refugee outflows, and the administrative complexity of holding a vote in such conditions, it is plausibly impossible and probably ill-advised. Democracy is not the end-all for a country, especially in light of an existential threat to its very statehood. If we really need to code Ukraine as something, we can always put an asterisk reminding us about the state of emergency (thus, it is de jure legal) and just note to ourselves ‘TBD until the war is over.’ That’s ok, if you need it.

It does matter, however, when we try and think about Ukrainian politics analytically. With institutional connections between public sentiment and the government formally shut down for the time being, and with the usual considerations about wartime censorship, Ukrainian politics cannot happen through standard democratic channels. But politics itself is coming back, simply in a more elite form.

The fight over Zaluzhny’s dismissal is the first major elite political battle in Ukraine since 2022. At present, it seems likely that Zelensky will get his way. Several questions then follow at a minimum, such as:

• Where does Zaluzhny go?

• Does he slip out of the limelight and sit patiently in some other position?

• Do other latent factions in Ukraine pick him up as a standard bearer for their criticisms of Zelensky?

• Does the lockstep accord within the Ukrainian parliament remain as such, or do more divisions emerge within the ruling party openly?

• Does the pro-presidential unity evident in Ukrainian media hold, or do some TV channels and major newspapers begin showing divergence?

• Do Ukrainian politicians begin to make more hay about the lack of new elections?

• Do Western states, always susceptible such claims, begin pressuring the government in some way?

• Does Zaluzhny’s successor become the next ‘most popular figure in Ukraine,’ and if so, what does that mean for Zelensky?

• How does the outcome of the next six months of fighting impact all of this?

These are reasonable questions to ask as we survey the state, and future trajectory, of Ukrainian politics in 2024. It is unlikely - although not impossible - that Zelensky will be able to reconsolidate public opinion firmly around himself, with no real dissension. It is unclear if this is realistic, however, and it is also unclear what Zelensky himself envisions for the future.

Trajectories in Ukrainian Politics for 2024

This winter’s political-military crisis is the first real crisis inside the Ukrainian government since 2022. It will not be the last. But what exactly should we be looking for over the short- and medium-terms? A few potential developments are plausible at this moment in time:

1. Successful reconsolidation around President Zelensky. It is entirely possible that Zelensky is able to leverage his still-considerable popularity as a wartime president and manage Zaluzhny’s dismissal without tremendous damage to himself. Zelensky is a careful, media-savvy populist politician with impressive political legitimacy. He has very real arguments he can make about the need for continued political unity when facing off against Russia’s military invasion. This case can be made to the public, but it can also be made with his copartisans in parliament and government, among Ukrainian (appointed) governors, and with the military establishment. He can even make the case to Zaluzhny himself, who could very well decide that in the national interest he should not make any disruptive waves and even dissuade them.

   This is the option that leaves us with the least amount of disruptive public politics for the year. Where public disputes could emerge would be in more technocratic realms, as policy debates over mobilization and other issues remain confined to relatively closed-door ones within ministries, legislative committees, and inside the government and are treated favorably by a still-loyal domestic media ecosystem. And any further political crises would, for the time being, look more like the brief moments of minor political turbulence prior to January 2024, such as the sacking of the Ukrainian Defense Minister in September of last year and the resignation of former presidential advisor Oleksiy Arestovych that January. These were ultimately quiet affairs that did not undermine Zelensky himself at the time.

2. The emergence of a patriotic opposition among political elites. It is also possible that the bad taste from the political-military crisis will undermine Zelensky in the eyes of some MPs, former presidential advisors, and even segments of the military elite. We do know that some figures close to Zelensky have quietly soured on him, and this could accelerate due course in a more public fashion. We should not think of a factionalizing split in Ukrainian politics as a return to the old dynamic of a ‘pro-Russian’ political opposition. Rather, it is more likely that a new critical tendency - targeted against the president’s leadership but strongly in favor of continuing the war - may develop rather in a ‘national-patriotic’ vein.

   This has the benefit of slotting into existing, but very quiet, sections of Ukrainian elites that had previously contested Zelensky pre-war. These include former President Petro Poroshenko and the Western Ukrainian nationalist segment of political elites. Zaluzhny, or another figure associated with him or using him as an example, could certainly use this as infrastructure for a kind of informal elite opposition. This would turn the parliament more contested, in all likelihood. And this may very well be incentivized anyway due to hard choices over new rounds of manpower mobilization that are already looming. The Mayor of Kyiv, Vitaliy Klitschko, for example is already making noises about supporting Zaluzhny. Such a national-patriotic opposition would not need to be total, but could simply complicate the governments efforts to pass laws and reconstitute Ukraine’s military along the government’s preferred lines.

3. Growing pressure against the president himself. A more divisive corollary to the above point could be the growth of an actual ‘anti-Zelensky’ bloc in Ukraine’s elite. Instead of just opposition to full presidential control, we could see an explicit campaign for Zelensky’s resignation. This would be highly destabilizing, and would face strong headwinds - as identified in the first point - in both society and in the international coalition that supports Ukraine today. But it is not inconceivable, especially if Ukraine continues to suffer battlefield losses this spring and summer, and if a perception of bad decision-making begins to grow even more markedly. These conditions do not yet exist, but with more open elite politics, it could easily emerge over the course of a bad year.

The above trajectories are not the full spectrum of possibilities in 2024, and rely on the assumptions that 1) the war will continue unabated and 2) no new elections will be held. Indeed, a very different set of political possibilities open up should a long-term ceasefire or even negotiated settlement come to pass (or if military defeat full-stop occurs, of course). In the event of a fundamental change to wartime conditions, Ukrainian politics could be seriously upended in a way not easily predictable.

Any ceasefire or settlement would be highly unpopular, and the government would have to respond to this dissatisfaction with hard choices. Holding elections would open up politics in a much more unsettling way than having to deal with factional politics based around the current set of institutional elites (who remain largely pro-unity and pro-presidential). The pressure to ensure a stable, national-unity outcome in a vote would raise pressures to massage the electoral outcome for the sake of stability. While if no elections are held, presidential popularity and its potential cratering could increase dangers of civic unrest, political violence, or even an elite (or military) coup of some sort.

Now, I would not want to claim that I’m confident in predicting any of that, mostly because that world is too far away for now. But as we view Ukrainian politics from afar this year, we should be cognizant of both near-term and more distant potentials. Ukrainian politics has been closed, united, and quiescent for two years. Any public political opening will undoubtedly move away from this status quo and increase uncertainty and dissension. We have no choice but to keep a close watch.

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Further Reading

Actually, there’s no new official publication news at the moment. But if you missed my previous Substack essay On Authoritarian Theory, check it out here:

- Julian