Friends, I am firmly of the opinion that, in times of war, the military leadership must be beyond criticism. With that in mind, allow me to pose my question thusly - who is framing Commander-in-Chief Zaluzhnyi and the Chief of the General Staff Shaptala?
There was an announcement today about the creation of the "General Zaluzhnyi Fund" in order to coordinate volunteer army supply efforts. The board of this Fund includes, aside from the Commander-in-Chief himself, his deputy Yevhen Moisiuk and the aforementioned Chief of the General Staff Shaptala. I am convinced that the people who pushed this idea onto the table of the Commander-in-Chief have entangled him in a sordid affair. If Zaluzhnyi had lent his support to some abstract fund like "Help the UA Armed Forces" or the already existing "Come Back Alive" there would be no issue whatsoever.
However, the decision was made to name the Fund after him. It is obvious why - the name can be monetized effectively in public. But the moment a military official begins publicly monetizing their name, they become a politician. Whether he wants to or not - that's how it comes across. It doesn't matter what the initial goal was, or how this will be explained. Zaluzhnyi has in effect launched his political project. In the middle of war.
The Zaluzhnyi Fund has one key difference from, say, the Poroshenko Fund: Zaluzhniy is the commander of an army at war. Kindly visualize the following news story: "The Zaluzhnyi Fund transferred body armor to that brigade" or "The Zaluzhnyi Fund financed the repair of that set of APCs." Is the picture clear in your mind? Now imagine how this will be interpreted in the countries that we're asking for materiel from. This can stop the transfer of heavy guns dead in its tracks. Because it will absolutely be seen as a sign of the military escaping civilian/democratic oversight. I firmly believe that the Commander-in-Chief didn't get bogged down in these details - that's understandable. But the very creation of this Fund changes his status. I repeat - up until this moment the military command in general and he in particular were beyond criticism. No one has publicly analyzed the effectiveness of the General Staff's decisions. But this decision opens the floodgates - people can now ask Zaluzhniy questions. Has Mariupol been relieved? Have its defenders been rescued? Is Kharkiv no longer being bombed daily? Does the Army's command really have the free time needed to create these Funds? This harkens back to the time of Ilovaisk, when Poroshenko was creating his "blind trust." This Fund can become Zaluzhnyi's "blind trust" the moment any bad news starts coming in from the front. It will be a black mark that will pursue him for years.
Summing up, this is a mistake. It needs to be corrected. The best way out would be to freeze the Fund until our victory, and then figure out the details. Right now though, any and all activity coming out of this Fund will have a political subtext.
