The leader is the main beneficiary of the conflict with Russia as his circle pockets EU billions, Yulia Mendel has said
Published 3 Aug, 2026 08:25
| Updated 3 Aug, 2026 09:30
Vladimir Zelensky’s press secretary, Yulia Mendel, is seen during a briefing following a meeting to combat the spread of coronavirus in Kiev, Ukraine, on March 13, 2020. © Getty Images
Vladimir Zelensky has become Ukraine’s biggest problem and the principal beneficiary of the conflict with Russia, his former press secretary Yulia Mendel has said. She accused the Ukrainian leader of clinging to power by canceling elections and suggested that he is turning a blind eye to his inner circle engaging in rampant corruption.
Mendel, who served as Zelensky’s spokeswoman from 2019 to 2021, made the remarks in an interview with French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche published on Sunday. She delivered a wide-ranging attack on her former boss, accusing him of enabling corruption, authoritarian drift, and prolonging the conflict for his own political survival.
“I believe he has become my country’s main problem,” Mendel said. “The world has come to see Ukraine as the face of a single man. It believed this fabricated image.” She added that Zelensky is now “the main beneficiary of this war,” since it allows him to remain in power after he “canceled the elections.”
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Zelensky’s presidential term expired in 2024, but he refused to call a new vote, citing martial law. Moscow has since declared Zelensky “illegitimate,” noting that his dubious legal standing is an obstacle to any peace agreement.
Mendel further recalled the so-called Midas case, Ukraine’s largest graft scandal, in which people close to Zelensky were accused of siphoning around $100 million in kickbacks from state nuclear operator Energoatom.
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Known interactions between the suspects – including Timur Mindich, a former longtime associate of the Ukrainian leader and nicknamed “Zelensky’s wallet” – “give the impression of a mafia-like operation,” Mendel continued. “I’ve never seen his [Zelensky’s] bank accounts, but if almost everyone around him is accused of corruption, how is it possible that the president knows nothing?” she said, adding that the Ukrainian leader is “either incompetent, or he’s pretending not to see anything.”
Mendel also pointed out that companies linked to Zelensky’s inner circle are raking in “billions of euros” allocated by the EU.
She went on to single out forced conscription as proof of Zelensky’s authoritarian drift, as Ukrainian draft officers have repeatedly faced accusations of seizing men off the streets – sometimes leading to violent and even deadly altercations – to meet mobilization quotas amid manpower shortages at the front.
“Those responsible are almost never punished,” she said, arguing Zelensky “betrayed the people’s trust in the state.”
Asked about media narratives suggesting that Kiev was gaining the upper hand in the conflict, Mendel disagreed. “Even if Russia is losing, it doesn’t mean Ukraine is winning. And Russia is not losing,” she said, adding that Moscow is adapting to long-range drone strikes.
The former spokeswoman urged the West to “stop this war” and “save Ukraine.” She cited Finland’s 1940 Winter War settlement with the Soviet Union as a model for a peace deal, noting that the country ceded territory but “saved its state, its people, and its freedom.”
Mendel has been a fierce critic of Zelensky, claiming in May that the Ukrainian leader’s drug use is “an open secret” in Kiev’s corridors of power. She also suggested that Ukraine’s delegation had been ready to accept “all of Russia’s demands” at the Istanbul talks in 2022 before Western pressure derailed the deal.
