Fresh blood

What Zelensky’s appointment of Ukraine’s former military intelligence head as his chief of staff could signal for the country

Being the Ukrainian president’s chief of staff has traditionally been a far more important job than it would seem on paper, a discrepancy that became most apparent during the obscene tenure of Dmytro Tabachnyk, who held the role under Leonid Kuchma, Ukraine’s second post-independence leader in the mid-1990s.

Young, educated and ambitious, Tabachnyk was not only deeply cynical, he also quietly despised the government, the entire political class and even his own boss. A Macchiavelian master, Tabachnyk loved nothing more than to make deputies, ministers and other power brokers beg him for access to the president.

The fifth and final man to hold the role under Kuchma, Vladimir Putin’s friend and ally Viktor Medvedchuk, was in many ways like Tabachnyk, albeit without the intelligence. Unlike Tabachnyk, however, Medvedchuk didn’t just see himself as the real power behind the throne, he saw himself as something of the Russian president’s viceroy in a then staunchly pro-Russian Ukraine.

After the Orange Revolution of late 2004 to early 2005, the country’s third president, Viktor Yushchenko, broke with tradition to publicly compare his chief of staff Viktor Baloha to a plumber. In a sop to the opposition movement that brought him to power, Yushchenko clearly wanted to highlight the technocratic aspect of the role, and make it crystal clear that its holder was neither an elected official nor a civil servant. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Baloha handed in his resignation from the reduced role shortly afterwards.

The apparatchiks that ran President Viktor Yanukovych’s office had much more influence, including on key opposition figures, than the official faces of the regime, whereas the chiefs of staff under President Petro Poroshenko considered the role a business appointment, with all the self-enrichment opportunities that came with it.

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, with Zelensky now in power, should have spelled the end for old approaches to running the state. The Office of the President of Ukraine was bound to take on a new significance during wartime, and Andriy Yermak, a long-standing friend and colleague of Zelensky’s, helped him shoulder that burden as his chief of staff during the first four years of the war.

One of the reasons Yermak had to resign his post in November was his questionable activity while in office. Though often hailed by Zelensky for being a “powerful manager” — a term that rubbed some people up the wrong way from the get-go — in reality, Yermak repeatedly crossed the line, stepping on the toes of the Defence Ministry, the Foreign Ministry and the Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovna Rada.

Yermak had often been accused of “playing” Zelensky, with the suggestion that the pair had effectively traded places becoming a commonly heard one.

Questions had long been asked about Yermak’s outsize role since the war began, with members of the public wondering why Zelensky’s chief of staff was heading up Ukrainian negotiation teams at international summits rather than an elected official or a professional diplomat. Yermak had often been accused of “playing” Zelensky, with the suggestion that the pair had effectively traded places becoming a commonly heard one.

However, one of the chief conditions set by the Americans for Ukraine to receive inward investment was giving increased powers to the country’s two independent anti-corruption bodies, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office. It was these two bodies that jointly took the decision to raid Yermak’s home and office in November, leading him to submit his resignation later the same day.

Following Yermak’s departure, there was animated speculation about whom Zelensky might select to fill such an important role, and indeed, the appointment of Ukrainian military intelligence chief General Kyrylo Budanov to run the Office of the President of Ukraine on Friday only served to further underscore the role’s significance.

Ukraine’s chief intelligence officer wasn’t going to accept a role as a pen-pusher, however, especially since a brilliant operation to save the life of Russian Volunteer Corps commander Denis Kapustin after Russia’s secret services placed a bounty of $500,000 on his head came to light. In view of current events, Budanov will be focused on adapting to the continuation of Russian hostilities, provocations, sabotage and terror attacks rather than seeking prospects for a truce.

Budanov was treated at Maryland’s Walter Reed National Military Medical Centre after he was wounded fighting in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, as well as given special training as part of a special CIA-backed programme, according to the New York Times, so he was familiar with the US intelligence community before he took over the GRU.

Budanov started his new job on Monday, with Oleh Ivashchenko, formerly head of the Foreign Intelligence Service (FIS) of Ukraine, replacing him as head of the GRU. The FIS will now be headed by Oleksandr Kononenko, who was previously involved in arranging for civilian prisoners of war to be released from captivity.

A voting intentions survey carried out by Ukrainian pollster SOCIS last year found that Budanov would beat Zelensky if both men made it to the run-off in a presidential election, making him among the public figures Ukrainians most trust, alongside the AFU’s former commander-in-chief, Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, who is currently serving as Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK. Military figures enjoy understandably high approval ratings. Both are potential competitors to Zelensky, who makes up the top three.

Budanov, Zaluzhnyi and Zelensky have yet to announce their intention to run for president when the time finally comes. However, making Budanov his right-hand man could be Zelensky’s first step in lining up a successor who would be acceptable to the US, though it could also simply be his way of reinforcing the political hierarchy while also ensuring his biggest rival is inside the tent pissing out.

In his regular evening addresses to the nation on Friday, Zelensky announced a “significant reset” for Ukraine that he said was aimed at increasing stability. To that end, he said that the post of defence minister, currently held by Denys Shmyhal, had been offered to First Deputy Prime Minister and Digital Transformation Minister Mykhailo Fedorov.

Observers expect Shmyhal to remain in government, and be moved to another key ministry such as energy. Zelensky also appointed a new head to the border service, and instructed Deputy Head of the Office of the President Pavlo Palisa, an AFU colonel who was previously the commander of combat units, “to determine what solutions can strengthen the Ukrainian position”.

This could all presage another war stratagem: Zelensky finally opting to declare full mobilisation, something he’s resisted for almost four years, and which would doubtless slash his popularity rating, but which might actually be the one of the measures he could take to bring Ukraine success on the battlefield.