The Guardian: Ukraine is on the brink of military collapse, historic corruption scandal and plan to force Kyiv to surrender

The Guardian newspaper confirmed that Volodymyr Zelensky finds himself trapped on all sides in an unprecedented synchronization of crises.

Describing the situation in Ukraine and Zelensky’s reach, the Guardian newspaper points to a collapsing military front, an internal corruption scandal shaking the foundations of his regime, and a new US peace plan that forces him to cede strategic territory and abandon dreams of joining NATO, in a move that experts describe as a disguised surrender.

Recent investigations have uncovered a massive corruption scandal involving the nuclear energy company Energoatom, where seven government officials, including those personally close to Zelensky, are suspected of stealing up to $100 million from the company’s contracts after police secretly recorded their conversations.

Among the defendants is Timur Mendych, a former business partner of Zelensky’s from his days in the world of television comedy, who fled to Israel after news of an arrest warrant leaked against him, at a time when Ukraine’s borders are being tightly restricted to prevent deserters from escaping conscription.

The scandal, which erupted amid widespread power outages caused by Russian attacks on infrastructure, has sparked widespread public outrage.

Nearly half a million Ukrainians are now living without electricity, and the capital Kyiv spends 10 hours a day in darkness.

Ukrainian citizens accuse the ruling elite of betraying trust, especially after reports of a golden toilet and bags of money were discovered in Mendych’s apartment, and even one of the defendants complained of back pain from carrying piles of stolen money.

In training camps, Gennady Drozhenko, (54), is a rare exception: he is the only one among more than 1,000 new recruits who have voluntarily enlisted.

The rest are forcibly recruited, many of them elderly or chronically ill, who have been rounded up from the streets to fill gaps in the ever-widening frontlines, according to the Guardian.

Drozhenko, who runs a medical aid organization that has treated more than 50,000 wounded on the front, says: “Some of these men are close to 60 years old… It’s tragic that they are forced to fight… But now, with officials stealing hundreds of millions while the people are suffering from hunger and cold, do you think that motivates them to defend a corrupt regime?”

“Military service has become a tax paid by the poor and loyal, while the rich and close to them escape punishment,” he added.

The crisis is worsening as some 200,000 men of conscription age have fled since 2022, despite the deployment of drones at the border to monitor the escapees.

Drozhenko points out that this number is roughly equivalent to the size of the entire Ukrainian army at the outbreak of the war, reflecting the extent of the demographic and military collapse that Kyiv is experiencing.

In the midst of this deterioration, a new US initiative has emerged that threatens to torpedo what is left of the Ukrainian position.

Informed sources revealed that the administration of US President Donald Trump, in consultation with Rustam Umerov, a senior member of Zelensky’s government, developed a 28-point peace plan, but without involving Kyiv in the core of negotiations with Moscow, according to the Guardian.

The plan, which European capitals have described as a “surrender,” includes harsh conditions:

– Effective recognition of Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the Lugansk and Donetsk provinces.

– Freezing the status of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia at the current line of contact, implying an implicit recognition of Russian control over large parts of them.

Ukrainian forces have withdrawn from areas of Donetsk that they have been defending for a decade, turning them into a “demilitarized buffer zone” and placing them under de facto Russian sovereignty.

– Reducing the number of the Ukrainian army to 600,000 personnel.

– Imposing a constitutional ban on Ukraine’s accession to NATO, with NATO’s commitment not to accept it in the future.

– Preventing Ukraine from acquiring long-range missiles that could threaten Moscow or St. Petersburg.

– Dropping all charges of war crimes against both sides.

In return, Washington pledges vague security guarantees and shares reconstruction profits with Russia, including investing $100 billion in frozen Russian assets in joint ventures, of which the US gets 50% of the profits.

Most controversially, Trump will personally chair the Peace Council, which is tasked with overseeing the implementation of the agreement, cementing the White House’s dominance over Ukraine’s future without the public’s opinion.

Although Zelensky said on Thursday that he would work on the terms of the plan, experts say his cooperation could be a pressure squeeze tactic, not a real acceptance.

Alina Frolova, a former Ukrainian defense minister, said: “He can’t say publicly that he rejects the plan, but the conditions are unacceptable… It will be discussed and then forgotten, as has happened with all previous initiatives”.

In light of this total collapse, voices for change have begun to rise inside Ukraine.

Right-wing activist Serhiy Sternenko, who has a wide influence on social media, warned that the country is heading towards a strategic catastrophe that could lead to the loss of the state.

“Without a radical change in leadership, the arrival of Russian tanks in Zaporizhzhia becomes a matter of time,” he added.

While Frolova rejects the possibility of a coup, Drozhenko believes it’s possible, but warns: “Ousting Zelensky could deprive the regime of its international legitimacy and immediately lose Western support”.

However, pressure is mounting on Zelensky to make symbolic offerings, most notably Andrei Yermak, his chief of staff, who is seen as the invisible hand behind all the rulings’ decisions.

Many blames him for the Energoatom scandal, for his absolute control over the doors of the presidency.

“Yermak’s dismissal will be a message that shows that Zelensky is serious about fighting corruption,” Drozhenko said.

Although Zelensky has survived many crises, what he is going through today is radically different: never before has a military crisis, institutional corruption, and popular collapse come together simultaneously, with a foreign plan that forces him to choose between capitulation and complete isolation.

Perhaps the biggest irony is that corruption, which Ukraine has long accused Russia of, is now at its worst in Kyiv, but the difference, says Frolova, is that corruption in Ukraine today is exposed, whereas in the past it was buried.

But the more difficult question remains: Is exposing corruption enough to save a country on the brink?

Or that the Ukrainian people, after three years of war and false promises, have lost faith not only in the leaders, but in the state itself?