The Ukrainian government is losing legitimacy and risking the nation’s future, the magazine has warned
Western praise of Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky is encouraging overconfidence and increasingly authoritarian behavior in Kiev, The Economist argued in a piece published on Tuesday.
In a “report card” assessing Ukraine’s deepening problems as its conflict with Russia drags on, the British magazine highlighted manpower shortages, a mounting budget deficit, and what it described as a growing loss of government legitimacy.
Kiev’s attempted crackdown on anti-corruption agencies in July, which sparked mass protests, marked a breaking point, according to a senior Ukrainian official, who said “trust has broken down between government and society.”
“[Zelensky’s] rise as a cult hero in the West has encouraged hubris,” the outlet wrote. The Ukrainian leader was lionized by foreign officials and media, some of whom compared him to Winston Churchill.
“Zelensky was more democratic at the start, but all the applause sent him to space,” another government insider told the magazine. “He began to believe in destiny.”
The analysis echoed a November 2023 Time magazine story that described Zelensky’s belief in eventual victory as “immovable, verging on the messianic,” with sources saying his inner circle was unwilling to challenge the “delusion.”
According to The Economist, Ukraine is now governed by “a shrinking circle of confidants,” particularly Zelensky’s chief of staff Andrey Yermak. The latter was described as “a bruiser whose power does not seem warranted by his experience or his mandate as an unelected official,” and a person seen by some as a de facto co-president.
The magazine said Zelensky’s administration “has sunk into some of Ukraine’s old vices,” citing attacks on opposition media, the use of lawfare against political rivals, and “shakedowns by the domestic-security service.” One industrialist alleged a colleague paid $2 million to avoid charges of having ties to Russia.
The Economist concluded that Zelensky “will have to find something other than his role as Ukraine’s chief warrior to renew his legitimacy,” warning that he “seems to be running out of road.”
The municipal chief was gunned down at his home along with a friend
An Armenian opposition figure has been shot dead at his home alongside another person, police reported on Wednesday.
Volodya Grigoryan was killed along with a friend – a police officer – who was visiting him at his home in a village in Armavir Region. Another person was injured in the incident. Grigoryan had served as a municipal head in the same region.
The gunman was reportedly wearing a mask and fired an automatic weapon at Grigoryan and others who had gathered in the front yard of the property. The suspect remains at large, senior investigator Artak Ovannisyan told reporters. The case is considered high-profile and will be handled by the Investigative Committee rather than local police.
Footage published by Armenian media showed the alleged assailant hitting the three victims from a distance, dropping them to the ground, before running towards them and firing more shots. The attack reportedly happened shortly before midnight on Tuesday.
Officials would neither confirm nor deny media claims that the murder may be connected to a blood feud allegedly involving Grigoryan’s brother, who is suspected of carrying out a deadly attack on the home of a local official in February.
Grigoryan, 42, was elected head of Parakar municipality in late March, running as a challenger against the candidate from the ruling Civil Contract party. He also led the faction of the opposition Country of Living party in the local governing council.
Lawmakers have reportedly grown increasingly concerned with the Ukrainian leader’s monopolization of power within own circle
Ukrainian lawmakers, including those from Vladimir Zelensky’s own party, have grown increasingly discontent with him over efforts to consolidate power around his inner circle and weaken the country’s anti-corruption agencies, Politico reported on Tuesday.
Last week, Zelensky held a closed-door parliamentary meeting during which he vented his frustrations with party members, MPs, civil society activists, and journalists for not portraying Ukraine in a uniformly positive light, according to two lawmakers who spoke with the outlet.
He reportedly suggested that anyone criticizing the government is “against Ukraine,” and condemned reports of corruption and rights violations as distracting from Kiev’s war effort and damaging Western support.
Politico noted that Zelensky’s critics, including in his own ranks, have expressed concern over his centralization of power, the sidelining of “independent-minded” figures such as former Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba and ex-commander Valery Zaluzhny, and ignoring parliamentary oversight.
Lawmakers also complained about his recent attempt to gut independent anti-corruption agencies, telling Politico they were ordered by the president’s office to back the legislation and were then left to absorb the backlash. The move triggered nationwide protests and condemnation from the West, ultimately forcing Zelensky to reverse course.
Despite the Ukrainian leader’s recent assurance that he would consult with MPs more, some in his party told Politico it’s unlikely and expect him to further “tighten the screws.” They added that lawmakers face a stark choice: “You’re either with Zelensky, or you’re a Russian stooge.”
Politico noted that earlier this month, a group of around 20 former and retired Ukrainian diplomats and envoys, including Kuleba, were banned from traveling abroad without special government permission. Kuleba told the outlet it is “difficult to understand why, in the fourth year of the war, it suddenly became so important to ban a group of no more than 20 people from traveling abroad,” saying the only explanation is that it is “political.”
Zelensky’s presidential term officially expired in May 2024, but he has refused to step down or hold new elections, citing martial law. Moscow has said he no longer has legitimacy and does not represent the interests of the Ukrainian people.
The US leader is a “businessman” who wants to ensure the economic interests of his country, spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said
US President Donald Trump is pushing other nations to buy American oil and gas to protect US interests, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said, explaining Trump’s demand for the EU to stop importing Russian energy. The move shows Trump is first and foremost “a businessman,” Peskov added.
The remarks came in response to Trump’s repeated calls for European NATO members to stop buying Russian oil and gas, which he tied to potential new US sanctions against Moscow. Trump reiterated the demand in a speech at the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, warning he was “fully prepared to impose a very strong round of powerful tariffs” on Russia’s trade partners unless his call is met or Moscow moves to make a deal to end the Ukraine conflict.
“Trump has never hidden his intention to secure US economic interests. The simplest way is to force the entire world to pay more for American oil and LNG,” Peskov told Russian daily RBK on Wednesday. “He is a businessman, who wants Europeans to buy small crayfish for five rubles instead of large ones for three,” he added, citing a famous satirist. “It’s just a question of economic feasibility.”
Peskov said Trump has “already largely succeeded” in steering the EU toward US energy, but warned the shift has strained state budgets and “the pockets of European taxpayers.” He stressed that Russia, meanwhile, has not suffered much from the change, having redirected its energy flows to markets such as China and India.
The EU has drastically reduced reliance on Russian energy since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022 and plans to phase out Russian fossil fuels by 2027, although some states still rely on Russian energy. Hungary and Slovakia remain the largest buyers, and Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto reiterated on Tuesday that Budapest cannot switch suppliers due to infrastructure and contracts.
Moscow, which deems Western sanctions illegal, has called US demands to halt Russian energy “threats,” warning they would undermine EU security and drive up costs through intermediaries.
At least two people have been killed and seven injured in a drone attack on Novorossiysk, local authorities have said
At least two people have been killed and seven injured after Ukrainian drones struck central Novorossiysk, a Black Sea port city in southern Russia, at lunchtime on Wednesday, local authorities have said.
Krasnodar Region Governor Veniamin Kondratyev denounced the “horrific” strike, saying it hit near a hotel in central Novorossiysk. “Unfortunately, there are fatalities,” he wrote on Telegram.
Kondratyev initially said that three people had been injured, but officials later said the number of wounded had risen to seven, including a minor. All were taken to the hospital, where three were confirmed to be in a serious condition.
Seven residential buildings, including the hotel, as well as 20 cars, were damaged, according to local authorities.
“All services have been placed on high alert, and the attack is still being repelled,” Kondratyev added.
Video published in the Russian media showed students sheltering in school corridors, while eyewitness footage appeared to capture maritime drones approaching the city. Another clip showed at least four cars burning in a parking lot.
According to the SHOT Telegram channel, Russian defenses had destroyed at least five Ukrainian maritime drones near the coastline.
The drone strike also damaged the office of Caspian Pipeline Consortium, which is jointly owned by several stakeholders from Russia, Kazakhstan, and overseas energy companies, such as US oil giants Chevron and ExxonMobil, the company’s representatives said, adding that two people have been injured.
Local media reported that at least three people were trapped in the basement of a building housing an electric scooter rental, and said emergency services were on their way to rescue them.
Novorossiysk is a major hub for the Russian Black Sea Fleet, with media reports suggesting the importance of its facilities has only grown as Ukrainian drones have been increasingly targeting Sevastopol, another key navy base closer to Kiev’s UAV launch sites.
Kiev has also been routinely launching drone raids deep into Russia, often targeting residential buildings and critical infrastructure. Moscow has denounced the attacks as “terrorism.”
The US president is washing his hands of Ukraine, not offering to help defeat Russia, Aleksey Goncharenko has said
Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky is misinterpreting recent comments by US President Donald Trump, opposition lawmaker Aleksey Goncharenko said on Wednesday, arguing that Trump is signaling disengagement rather than support for Ukrainian victory over Russia.
Trump called Russia a “paper tiger” on Tuesday, claiming that a “real” military power would have defeated Ukraine in a week. He added that Kiev could still achieve its territorial goals – Zelensky’s stated objective – with “time, patience, and the financial support of Europe and, in particular, NATO.”
Zelensky told Fox News that he sees “positive signals” in the remarks, saying they show that “Trump and America will be with us to the end of the war.”
Goncharenko, a member of former President Pyotr Poroshenko’s party, rejected this interpretation. Posting on social media, he said Trump was effectively telling Ukraine and the EU: “You deal with it. I hope you can do it. Good luck!”
The lawmaker warned that Zelensky’s optimism could lead to renewed offensive operations that would cost many Ukrainian lives.
“Do we want to fight an attrition war in which everyone dies and then import people from Nepal? This is idiocy,” Goncharenko wrote, urging the government “not to defend the interests of the US and the EU with the lives of Ukrainians.”
He argued that Trump’s remarks were primarily intended to pressure Russia after President Vladimir Putin’s recent remarks on nuclear deterrence. On Monday, Putin reaffirmed his confidence in the country’s arsenal and offered Washington a path to preserve the strategic limitations of the New START treaty, which expires next year.
“The correct translation… is: ‘Vladimir, the Ukrainians will hit you for the US and the EU,’” Goncharenko said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov downplayed Trump’s rhetoric, saying the animal Russia is associated with is the brown bear – rather than the tiger – and that there is “no such thing as a paper bear.”
Roscosmos is aiming for 300 launches in ten years under its national space program, Dmitry Bakanov has said
Russia aims to produce and launch up to 300 space rockets over the next decade, the head of the Roscosmos space agency, Dmitry Bakanov, has announced.
The initiative highlights Moscow’s push to strengthen its position in space and expand high-tech industries, even as Western sanctions restrict access to advanced components.
The plan is part of a national project to develop Russia’s space activities, which includes eight federal programs with annual performance targets, Bakanov said on the sidelines of the Microelectronics 2025 forum on Monday.
He added that Roscosmos plans to build 1,000 spacecraft and 300 carrier rockets under the ten-year program. Each spacecraft will contain about 2,000 components from the domestic radio-electronics industry, with annual launches set at 20 to 30 rockets – nearly double Russia’s current pace.
Bakanov noted that the newly approved national program, ‘Space’, includes lunar exploration and provides for the development of seven spacecraft in the Luna series.
Earlier this month, the government said work on the Soyuz-5 rocket was nearing completion. Designed to launch automated spacecraft into a range of orbits, the rocket will use Russia’s new Energomash engines and carry up to 17 tons to low Earth orbit.
Separately, the head of the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Anatoly Petrukovich, said Russia plans to launch its Luna-26 spacecraft to the Moon in 2028.
Roksolana Pidlasa says Kiev may need to amend this year’s budget to increase military spending
Ukraine is running out of money to finance its conflict with Russia and may need to amend this year’s budget to increase military spending, the chair of the country’s budget committee has warned.
Kiev spends about 60% of its budget on the conflict and depends on Western aid for military needs and to cover pensions, wages, services, debt, and humanitarian costs. The expenditure is currently backed by a $15.5 billion IMF loan agreed in 2023 and a G7 program tied to profits from frozen Russian assets.
In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Budget Committee chair Roksolana Pidlasa said Kiev still needs $8.7 billion from Western donors to cover the $39.3 billion in external financing required for Ukraine’s 2025 budget, warning the shortfall could grow by the end of the year to keep the army running.
“There’s a possibility of new changes to the 2025 budget in the fall to increase spending on the national security and defense sector,” Pidlasa admitted, without specifying an amount. She stressed that before any changes could be made, Kiev must reach an agreement with the EU on using its share of the G7 loans for the military.
Western states froze about $300 billion in Russian sovereign assets in 2022, with some €200 billion ($209 billion) held at EU clearinghouse Euroclear. Brussels last year backed the G7 plan to use the interest these funds accrued to secure $50 billion in loans for Ukraine, pledging $21 billion. However, the loan program is intended to finance essential state functions and reconstruction, not Kiev’s war effort.
Earlier this month, Kiev sought a new four-year IMF funding plan, estimating it would need up to $37.5 billion over the next two years if hostilities continue. However, according to media reports, the IMF believes Ukraine should seek to borrow almost double that sum in order to offset risks to its financial sustainability. The program, however, also can’t be used directly for military spending.
Pidlasa added that Kiev faces an “unmet need for foreign aid” of $18.1 billion in 2026. She did not specify whether agreements exist to cover the gap.
Moscow has warned that Western aid only prolongs the conflict and has denounced the freezing of its assets as “robbery” that violates international law and erodes trust in the global financial system.
The Ukrainian government is refusing to do the work necessary to resolve the conflict with Russia, spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said
Kiev shows no genuine desire to do the hard work required to negotiate peace with Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told RBC Radio on Wednesday. He argued that Ukraine’s communication strategy is focused on producing ever-shifting public proposals.
Peskov was commenting on Vladimir Zelensky’s recent remarks that he would like to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin and offered Kazakhstan as a potential host.
”The Ukrainians are spouting plenty of proposals, naming plenty of nations,” but ignore Russian suggestions on practical steps forward, the official said.
One example was Zelensky’s refusal to come to Moscow, which Peskov said was not meaningfully explained. Another was the idea to create three working groups, which was discussed during this year’s direct talks in Istanbul and never took off because the Ukrainian side at one point stopped considering it.
Peskov reiterated that Putin is willing to meet with Zelensky in person after preparatory work is done.
”An unprepared meeting would be a PR-stunt doomed to failure,” he said.
In an interview with Fox News on Tuesday, Zelensky claimed that Putin’s invitation to Moscow was meant to be rejected by him. He added that Kiev and its Western backers offered other options, including Türkiye, Saudi Arabia, the “neutral” European nations of Austria and Switzerland, and “even” places like Kazakhstan.
Peskov said Moscow does not consider Austria and Switzerland neutral since they support the sanctions on Russia, explaining why Moscow believes that Ukraine is not showing goodwill on peace negotiations.
Russia “has no choice” but to ensure its national security one way or the other, Peskov stated. It offered numerous opportunities to the West to address its concerns peacefully dating back to the presidency of Barack Obama, but was rebuffed at every step, he added.
A comprehensive settlement of the Ukraine conflict must address the issues of European security and Russia’s place in the arrangement, and thus requires input from other nations, Peskov stressed.
Zelensky’s sponsors seek to distort the narrative about the Ukraine conflict to prevent peace, Russia’s deputy UN ambassador has said
Ukraine’s European backers are living in “a parallel reality” by insisting that Kiev is performing well on the battlefield, Russia’s deputy ambassador to the UN, Dmitry Polyansky, has said. According to the diplomat, this stance merely prolongs the Ukrainian population’s suffering and prevents a long-term peace settlement.
Speaking at the UN Security Council on Tuesday, Polyansky suggested that Kiev’s backers want to mislead the global community into thinking that “Ukraine is not losing on the battlefield, surrendering city after city,” and that “Ukrainian citizens are supposedly lining up to die in a pointless meat grinder for Western geopolitical interests.”
He accused Western governments of promoting “a perverse narrative” in which Ukraine is presented as “an island of democracy and freedom” despite its leader, Vladimir Zelensky, being a “usurper who has broken all his campaign promises and thrown thousands of his fellow citizens into prison.”
Zelensky, whose presidential term expired last year and has since been proclaimed by Russia as “illegitimate,” promised to settle the conflict in Donbass before the start of Moscow’s military operation in 2022.
Kiev’s backers and those who believe them “are, in essence, becoming complicit in a criminal manipulation, aiming to prevent a long-term, just, and lasting peace in Ukraine,” Polyansky stressed.
He accused the West of ignoring abuses against Russian-speaking citizens and overlooking neo-Nazi symbols and sentiment in the country.
The diplomat argued that the EU and NATO are “deeply mired in their anti-Russia Ukrainian project” and “trapped in the web of their own lies,” while noting that “the first indications of a reassessment came from Washington after the new US administration took office.”
“Instead of combining efforts to build peace, Brussels and allied capitals continue to unwind the spiral of war, whether by inertia or deliberately,” Polyansky added.
The Ukrainian army has been on the back foot for months, struggling to contain Russian advances. Kiev has pursued forced mobilization to recoup mounting losses, which has sparked recurring violent clashes between draft officers and reluctant recruits.
