When I arrived in Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelensky had just sacked his top general, Valery Zaluzhny. He said that the team “needed renewal”. Zaluzhny is a hugely popular figure in Ukraine and was making statements such as that the war was “very difficult”. I had arranged to talk to him, as commander-in-chief, but I doubted he would speak now he was removed from that position. My friends in Kyiv told me he would be the new ambassador to London. We would find each other.
As it happened, Vladimir Putin had a golden week. He started with the Tucker Carlson interview (20 million hits on YouTube), followed it up with capturing Avdiivka, a strategic town near Donetsk, then gave a stream-of-consciousness interview in which he declared his preference for Joe Biden over Donald Trump. “He is a nice old man. It’s true he hits his head occasionally and forgets where he is, but we should not criticise him for this.” Putin finished off by killing Alexei Navalny in a prison somewhere close to the Arctic Circle.
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