https://nypost.com/2023/12/05/news/ukraines-zelensky-is-turning-into-an-autocrat-claims-kyiv-mayor/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=nypost

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is becoming an autocrat who is reshaping Ukraine into an authoritarian state no different than Russia, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko has shockingly claimed.

Klitschko, a former heavyweight boxing champion-turned-politician, took the unprecedented step of publicly attacking Zelensky, an ex-comedian and actor, so vehemently for the first time since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine 21 months ago.

While the pair have been political foes, such a blistering public condemnation was still shocking to many, given the country’s war crisis.

“At some point we will no longer be any different from Russia, where everything depends on the whim of one man,” Klitschko said in a new interview with the German news outlet Der Spiegel.

Klitschko, who has served as the mayor of Kyiv since 2014, praised his fellow mayors and regional governors for thwarting Ukraine’s descent into authoritarianism.

“There is currently only one independent institution, but enormous pressure is being exerted on it: local self-government,” he said.

Klitschko, who has clashed with Zelensky since the start of the war over the poor state of Kyiv’s emergency shelters, claimed that the president has become isolated and that they never meet or speak to one another — even though their offices are located only a short distance apart.

In a separate sit-down with the Swiss news site 20Minutes, Klitschko accused Zelensky of lying to the public about Ukraine’s progress in the bloody conflict.

The mayor said he agreed with Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the Ukrainian military’s commander in chief, when he said last month that the war had gone “into a stalemate” after a disappointing counteroffensive that failed to deliver a decisive blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces.

Zaluzhnyi warned that the war could drag on for years and poured cold water over the prospect of a “beautiful breakthrough” – unless Ukraine comes up with a game-changer similar to the invention of gunpowder.

Zelensky bristled at Zaluzhnyi’s comments to The Economist, insisting that the conflict, despite slowing down in recent weeks, was anything but a “stalemate.”

“[Zaluzhnyi] told the truth,” Klitschko said. “Sometimes people don’t want to hear the truth. … Of course, we can euphorically lie to our people and our partners. But you can’t do that forever. Some of our politicians have criticized Zaluzhnyi for the clear words — wrongly. I stand behind him.”

Klitschko, 52, argued that Zelensky’s popularity has been declining since the start of the war in February 2022, when he emerged onto the world stage as the symbol of Ukraine’s struggle for survival — and the mayor predicted that the president will eventually find himself out of power as payback for his “mistakes.

“People see who’s effective and who’s not. And there were and still are a lot of expectations. Zelensky is paying for mistakes he has made,” the Kyiv mayor said.

Klitschko reprised a claim often repeated by Zelensky’s critics that Ukraine’s president downplayed the risk of a Russian invasion until it was too late, leaving the country badly unprepared for Putin’s occupying forces.

“People wonder why we weren’t better prepared for this war, why Zelensky denied until the end that it would come to this,” he said.

During his wide-ranging interview with Der Spiegel, Klitschko praised local officials and not Zelensky’s administration for repelling Russian attacks in the first days and weeks of the war.

But despite his litany of grievances, the mayor stopped short of calling for Zelensky’s immediate ouster.

“The president has an important function today, and we have to support him until the end of the war,” Klitschko said. “But at the end of this war, every politician will pay for his successes or failures.”

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5455653&forum_id=2#47135855)

Sorry that Ukraine won, Putintard.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5455653&forum_id=2#47135859)

CR, just more proof that Ukraine is a healthy democracy.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5455653&forum_id=2#47135861)

CR, on balance I would describe the last few years as a "huge win" for Ukraine as a whole and Ukrainian democracy in particular, when you REALLY stop and think about it.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5455653&forum_id=2#47135881)

CR. Glad we could agree on this brilliant Thoughtful Moderate(TM) take.

Btw, I'm thinking about creating a Substack where I exclusively write >5,000 word "thought pieces" that explain, in brilliant and nuanced detail, all of the complexities that surround and complicate various issues which ultimately end up resolving at the very end (purely by chance) into "the DNC happens to hold the exact right position about this."

Thoughts? Would you subscribe?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5455653&forum_id=2#47135896)

authored (purely by chance) by schizoids with little in the way of professional or social success?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5455653&forum_id=2#47135932)

Oh wow, sounds like you're a winner who likes reading materials prepared by other winners. Impressive! You are always very impressive, LTM. I am impressed by you!

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5455653&forum_id=2#47136381)

>>> "Everyone"

CR, I certainly was very vocal in my belief about that, as Pumos never get tired of reminding us.

Hey, can you link me to even a single poast where I said anything like that, btw? I forgot to bookmark them haha.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5455653&forum_id=2#47135901)

Klitschko has wanted to be president for a long time

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5455653&forum_id=2#47135865)

That's besides the point, idiot. Btw, you seem racist and homophobic. That's not OK. What's your IRL name?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5455653&forum_id=2#47135885)

Russia backed itself into a corner when it made all four regions constitutionally a part of Russia proper, so even if Ukraine wanted to end the war today they would have to give up another huge chunk of territory, and that’s not gonna happen

this war will go into 2025 and perhaps longer

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5455653&forum_id=2#47135965)

Author: Trump Did Nothing Wrong

stalemate is a phase, it’s not the same as a war becoming a frozen conflict

Russia backed itself into a corner when it made all four regions constitutionally a part of Russia proper, so even if Ukraine wanted to end the war today they would have to give up another huge chunk of territory, and that’s not gonna happen

this war will go into 2025 and perhaps longer

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5455653&forum_id=2#47135965)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5455653&forum_id=2#47135975)

Jews have no right to exist as Jews. Judaism is simply permanent war on humanity, while Jews constantly scream about being victims. They are grotesque.

Zelensky is just a normally genocidal Jew.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5455653&forum_id=2#47136057)

I've said it once, I'll say it again. If there one thing in the world I can count on it is the earnest and serious care that poasters like MASE and To Be Fair have for Ukrainians (and Russians for that matter). They are NOT here for petty internet squabble time. They are here to argue for the betterment of Eastern Europe.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5455653&forum_id=2#47136180)

Lol except I have literally never, not even once, said I particularly "care" about either Ukrainians or Russians as a group of people.

Unlike you -- a very emotional man who makes deeply emotional (and often irrational and rather feminine, ie "fuck it we need to put NATO boots on the ground in Moscow already, damn the consequences fuck it all") arguments that are based on your own ethnic identity vis-a-vis this conflict -- I have no personal connections to the populations on either side, and I only care about the outcome on a much larger and more abstract level as a large-scale battle that is being waged between kiked out Western ZOG and a comparatively dissident non-Western state.

That's the difference between us. Well, that and about two standard deviations of IQ.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5455653&forum_id=2#47136392)

Half the fun of posting articles like this is watching Dumb and Dumber sputter through tears to explain it all away as if it were nothing while they accuse those that post it of "bad intentions". War is tragic, but one silver lining is how badly these guys are going to meltdown when it's all over. Can't wait.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5455653&forum_id=2#47136490)

That has it's own failings, doesn't it TBF? Removing all emotion from the equation, not concerning yourself with the civilians who suffer, the values of each side or the way each side conducts itself in combat and on the world stage? Sounds very Kissinger-like. Realism has its limits. People are deserving of dignity. They are not abstract playthings to be used as a means to an end.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5455653&forum_id=2#47136576)

Kissinger wasn't wrong in his fundamental approach, nor was he an idiot. He was a shrewd and analytical man with a genius-level IQ. His real problem was that he had the misfortunate of being born a kike, and as such he was essentially predestined to root for the wrong side and push a terrible agenda that ran antithetical to the wider interests of humanity as a hole ("Hatred of Jews is love for humanity, and vice versa").

BTW, Kissinger himself actually agreed with that assessment. "If it were not for the accident of my birth, I would be antisemitic.... Any people who has been persecuted for two thousand years must be doing something wrong." -- H. Kissinger (as quoted in Walter Isaacson's 1992 biography, "Kissinger").

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5455653&forum_id=2#47136588)

"I only care about the outcome on a much larger and more abstract level as a large-scale battle that is being waged between kiked out Western ZOG and a comparatively dissident non-Western state."

Right, all your bleating about emotions is an attempt to obscure that your position is insane. It is contemptuous.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5455653&forum_id=2#47136603)

"Your position is insane," declared the guy who literally calls for NATO boots to be put on the ground in Moscow tomorrow, consequences be damned.

Wow, thooo inthane! Next up: Benzo to denounce me as a stupid ugly gay pauper.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5455653&forum_id=2#47136629)

2nd most corrupt nation on earth invaded by 3rd most corrupt nation on earth, residents of 4th most corrupt nation on earth urged to send aid *by the government of the most corrupt nation on earth that the 4th most corrupt nation on earth coincidentally also sends aid to

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5455653&forum_id=2#47136902)