Former army chief seen as Zelenskyy's top rival reveals to AP a rift between them

LONDON (AP) — Ever since he was ousted as the head of Ukraine’s army in 2024 and appointed as the country’s ambassador to Britain, Valerii Zaluzhnyi has widely been seen as the top political rival to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Zaluzhnyi, 52, refuses to discuss his political ambitions, saying he doesn't want to risk harming national unity during a war with Russia that is approaching its fourth anniversary. Yet in a sign of his possible desire to run for the presidency – after the war is over – Zaluzhnyi spoke publicly for the first time about a deep rift between himself and Zelenskyy in a recent interview with The Associated Press.

Tensions emerged soon after Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, and tempers often flared between the two men over how best to defend the country, Zaluzhnyi said. The strained relationship reached a boiling point later that year, when dozens of agents from Ukraine’s domestic intelligence service raided Zaluzhnyi’s office, he told the AP.

Zaluzhnyi alleges that the previously unreported incident was an act of intimidation. It risked exposing their rivalry at a time when national unity was paramount.

Zelenskyy’s office and Ukraine’s security service, known as the SBU, declined to comment for this story. The AP could not independently confirm Zaluzhnyi's account of the raid.

Even years later, the revelation threatens to polarize public opinion in Ukraine at a critical moment in the war. Russian forces are making slow, steady gains across Ukraine's eastern front, and both sides are clinging to incompatible demands as the U.S. presses them to reach a peace deal.

Zaluzhnyi said that during the 2022 raid on his office he called Zelenskyy’s chief of staff warning him he was prepared to call in the military to stop it and protect the command center: “I will fight with you and have already called in reinforcements to the center of Kyiv for support.”

While that near crisis early in the war passed, disagreements between Zaluzhnyi and Zelenskyy over how to defend their country persisted, according to Zaluzhnyi, who said he often challenged the president’s military strategy.

A dispute over a counteroffensive in 2023 that ultimately failed was particularly contentious, the former general said. Although Zaluzhnyi’s popularity with the public had been cemented by several successes on the battlefield, Zelenskyy dismissed him as army chief in February 2024, and later announced he would be headed to London.

The move was widely seen by political analysts as an effort by Zelenskyy to limit Zaluzhnyi’s potential as a political rival by distancing him from day-to-day affairs in Ukraine.

Polls consistently give Zaluzhnyi a slight lead over Zelenskyy in a hypothetical race. Zelenskyy’s once-robust popularity has waned as the war drags on. A corruption scandal implicating several of Zelenskyy's top officials has eroded public trust, according to lawmakers and activists. Zelenskyy recently reshuffled his leadership team in an effort to restore confidence.

The U.S. has been ramping up pressure on Russia and Ukraine to end the war. While a deal remains elusive, Zelenskyy has agreed in principle to a plan laid out by President Donald Trump that calls for elections once the war is over and security guarantees are in place.

‘I know how to fight’

One evening in mid-September 2022, as Ukraine was mounting an effective counteroffensive in the northeast, Zaluzhnyi, then army commander, emerged from a tense meeting at Zelenskyy’s headquarters and headed back to his office in Kyiv.

Hours later, dozens of agents from Ukraine’s Security Service showed up at Zaluzhnyi’s office to search the premises, Zaluzhnyi said. Over a dozen British officers were there at the time, he said.

The Ukrainian agents did not say what they were looking for, according to Zaluzhnyi, who says he prevented them from rifling through documents and computers.

The raid was clearly a threat, Zaluzhnyi said. In the presence of the agents, he phoned Zelenskyy’s chief of staff at the time, Andrii Yermak, and made a stark warning: “I told Yermak that I would repel this attack, because I know how to fight.”

Zaluzhnyi then phoned the head of the Security Service at the time, Vasyl Maliuk, to ask what was happening. Maliuk said he knew nothing about the raid and promised to look into it, according to Zaluzhnyi.

Later, he learned that Maliuk’s agency had sought a search warrant from a district court in Kyiv two days earlier to inspect that same address. The agency was seeking to search a strip club allegedly run by a criminal organization, according to a court document obtained by AP.

But the strip club named in the filing had been closed at that location since before Russia's full-scale invasion, two employees who work at the club's new location told the AP.

Zaluzhnyi believes the search warrant was a pretext and that the agency could not plausibly have mistaken the location of the country’s main war command center.

Diluted striking force

The 2023 counteroffensive drew widespread criticism from military experts for being too ambitious and coming too late, giving Russian forces time to fortify positions.

Zaluzhnyi says the plan he had crafted with help from NATO partners failed because Zelenskyy and other officials wouldn't commit the resources it required.

The original plan was to concentrate enough forces into a “single fist” to retake the partially occupied region of Zaporizhzhia — home to a vital nuclear power plant — and then have them advance south to the Sea of Azov. This would sever a corridor of land the Russian army had been using to resupply Crimea, which it illegally annexed in 2014. Success required a large, concentrated buildup and tactical surprise, Zaluzhnyi said.

What happened instead, he said, was that forces were dispersed over a wide area, diluting their striking power.

His account of how the counteroffensive diverged from the original plan was corroborated by two Western defense officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they aren't authorized to speak publicly to the media.

A diplomat with political intentions?

Zaluzhnyi’s office at the Ukrainian embassy in London reflects his years as a general. The walls are adorned with posters of military aircraft, army medals he was awarded and children’s drawings of battle scenes. There are toy drones on a mahogany table.

Behind his desk, screens show real-time feeds from drones flying over the battlefield of eastern Ukraine.

Zaluzhnyi's key criticisms of Ukraine’s war strategy are that it depends on an unrealistic number of troops and is not organized well in how it develops and deploys new technologies to the battlefield. He watches developments closely, but says he has not been involved with military decision-making since Zelenskyy pushed him out. Zaluzhnyi said he and Zelenskyy had “absolutely friendly” conversations on the two occasions they met since then.

Some analysts say Zaluzhnyi's lack of involvement in Ukraine’s day-to-day political affairs could weaken his popularity.

Still, an Ipsos poll published last month showed support for Zaluzhnyi in a hypothetical future election at 23%, compared with Zelenskyy's 20%, making him the president’s top competitor.

Many Ukrainians see him as a figure capable of changing the system, said Volodymyr Fesenko, a political analyst based in Kyiv. “People will vote not only for Zaluzhnyi but also against Zelenskyy — blaming him for the failures of his presidency,” he explained.

Zaluzhnyi avoids discussing politics, he says, for fear of fomenting division among Ukrainians. “Until the war is over or martial law ends, I am not discussing this and have done nothing toward that,” he said.

Despite his reticence, a number of campaign consultants, party figures and political insiders continue to approach Zaluzhnyi and offer to help craft a campaign.

Zaluzhnyi said a “fairly well known” American political consultant approached him in the spring of 2025. An official close to Zaluzhnyi, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly, told AP it was Paul Manafort, who served as chairman of Trump's 2016 presidential campaign before he was convicted in 2018 of crimes that included secretly lobbying for Ukraine’s former pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych.

“I thanked him for paying attention to me, but said that I did not need his services,” Zaluzhnyi said.

Manafort, who was pardoned by Trump at the end of his first term, did not respond to calls and messages from the AP.

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AP writer Steve Peoples in Washington contributed to this report.