On loyalty – The Economist:

‘On wednesday ukraine’s parliament convened to approve an unexpected wave of resignations. It was the start of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s first major wartime shake-up, a merry-go-round of promotions and dispatches to irrelevance. The president had wanted a quick show to bamboozle his way to the headlines. The result, which saw even members of his own party mocking the proceedings, and three of the seven votes failing, hinted at increasing dysfunction within the government.’

(…)

‘Tensions between the president and his foreign minister have been growing since the start of full-scale invasion in 2022. Before then, the two men’s careers dovetailed. Mr Zelensky pulled the nerdy diplomat from relative obscurity in 2019, first making him deputy prime minister, then foreign minister. A sharp communicator with rounded glasses—more Harry Potter than John Lennon—and Vivienne Westwood ties, Mr Kuleba became respected among foreign diplomats in Kyiv and in the West. But in the end his sophisticated diplomacy did not always align with the raw and emotional rhetoric of his boss.
To the president’s office, the complaint was that Mr Kuleba avoided getting his hands dirty. “They think he just liked to collect victories,” says one MP from the president’s bloc. “He doesn’t see things through.” Insiders suggest Mr Kuleba’s fate was sealed in April when Andriy Sybiha, rumoured to be his replacement, was moved from the president’s office to become a deputy minister. Several sources close to the president suggested that pressure from America’s State Department prevented the switch from happening then. With election season underway in America, the focus is now elsewhere, one source notes.’

(…)

‘Given the centralisation that has already happened during wartime, the ministerial changes are unlikely to have a serious impact—either on the government or the front lines in eastern Ukraine, which are looking increasingly precarious. Several sources, however, describe the changes as a further consolidation of power around Volodymyr Zelensky’s influential chief of staff Andriy Yermak. “They had loyal people around them,” says Yaroslav Zhelezhnyk, an opposition MP. “But they now have even more loyal ones.”’

Read the article here.

War enables oligarchy, sometimes even kakistocracy (Israel).

Two years ago, I visited Ukraine and already then some people there told me that Zelensky was nothing but an oligarch and the helper of other oligarchs.

Needless to say, one oligarch can be better than the other. And Zelensky is our oligarch.