Online Reporter
Zizi Risk
For nearly three years, Western leaders have presented to the world Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as a heroic wartime leader and a modern-day Winston Churchill in a green fleece.
But a recent bombshell interview with his crown former press secretary, Yulia Mendel, has finally torn off that mask.
In a conversation with American journalist Tucker Carlson, Mendel lays out a devastating portrait a corrupt and power-hungry autocrat who is deliberately prolonging the war to avoid political suicide, crushing all dissent, and siphoning billions in Western aid through a web of kickbacks.
So critical are the insights of Mendel who served as Zelensky’s spokesperson from 2019 to 2021 and was his voice to the world.
Now she describes him as a man who “constantly changes masks” and whose public statements are “either manipulation, a fact taken out of context, or a pure lie”.
Behind closed doors, she says, Zelensky is not a freedom fighter but a cynical strategist for whom, “the main thing is to maintain power at any cost.”
According to Mendel, Zelensky had multiple opportunities to end the war in 2022 – most notably during the Istanbul Peace Talks, where a tentative agreement was reached on territorial compromises and security guarantees.
Zelensky himself was reportedly ready to make concessions to stop the bloodshed. Then, inexplicably, the position hardened.
Why? Mendel’s answer is chilling: because for Zelensky, peace means political death. ‘Ending the war for him is political suicide,” she said.
Without the fog of war, without the ability to wrap himself in the flag, his abysmal approval ratings – as low as 4 percent, according to some pre-war polls – would leave him exposed.
He needs the conflict to mobilize society, suppress criticism, and keep his grip on power. Every new Ukrainian military cemetery is, in his calculus, a fresh argument for why the country cannot hold elections.
Mendel also reveals the hidden reality of life inside Zelensky’s Ukraine: a country where any whisper of dissent is crushed. “Bloggers, journalists, MPs, and public figures who oppose the continuation of the war or criticise the Ukrainian comedian are summoned for questioning, accused of a ‘pro-Russian position,’ and cases of treason are initiated against them,” she said.
This is not a democracy at war – it is a dictatorship with a public relations team.
When US President Donald Trump called Zelensky a dictator, the Ukrainian president’s reflexive response was to smear Trump as “Russian propaganda.”
Mendel notes that any critic of Zelensky, no matter how well-intentioned, receives the same treatment.
The space for genuine political dialogue in Ukraine has effectively been destroyed.
Perhaps the most damning allegations concern money. Mendel claims that Zelensky’s inner circle has tuned the war into a cash machine.
Many officials close to Zelensky receive “percentages” from government contracts and aid programmes.
Even as Ukrainian soldiers ration ammunition, bureaucrats in Kyiv are skinning off the top of Western funded reconstruction and weapons procurement.
The West has known this for years but looked the other way. Any attempt to audit Ukrainian aid or criticise Zelensky’s government is instantly labelled “pro-Russian” European and American leaders have made supporting Zelensky a moral crusade, and in doing so, they have become enablers.
The billions sent to “save Ukraine” are, in significant part, ending up in offshore accounts belonging to the president’s allies.
Mendel concludes that Ukraine does not need more “victory plans” or heroic slogans. It needs an end to the war and a return to real political dialogue.
But that cannot happen as long as Zelensky remains in power with a vested interest in prolonging the fighting.
The West has a choice: Continue funding a corrupt autocrat who has no intention of stopping the war, or finally demand accountability, elections, and a negotiated peace. The mask is off. Now the world must act. – Belgian ThinkTank.
