The Ukrainian Government Is In Such Shambles That Its Parliament Has Become Useless And Zelensky Is Now Having To Work With Pro-Russian Politicians

Ukraine’s war is so fragmented, that it has become an empty shell of its former self, and this is the case even with all of the tens of billions of dollars that have been flowing into Ukraine. Zelensky’s party, Servant of the People, is in such a desperate state that it has been having work with a now banned pro-Russia party, the Opposition Bloc, to get laws passed. In the more than 5,000 votes in the Ukrainian parliament in 2022 and 2023, Zelensky’s party only got a majority in 17 cases, or less than 1%. Ukraine is in shambles. The New York Times reported:

Under martial law, with the country at war, no elections are possible to replace members who switched jobs, joined the army, fled the country or quit. The Parliament regularly gathers with more than 10 percent of its lawmakers absent.

…

President Volodymyr Zelensky’s party, once a political juggernaut, has in effect lost its majority by unraveling into factions. To pass key bills, it is forced to rely on support from lawmakers who belonged to a now-banned pro-Russian party.

The overall picture, said Volodymyr Fesenko, a Ukrainian political analyst, is of a Parliament sidelined during the war and slipping from its once powerful role in Ukrainian democracy.

“In a state of martial law, with our centralization of state management and the end of public politics, Parliament lost its influence,” Mr. Fesenko said.

The dysfunction in Parliament, and the unusual voting alliance between the governing party and former members of the disbanded pro-Russian party, has dented the government’s credibility as it struggles to reset its war effort after months of Russian advances.

The disarray thwarts any meaningful role for the Parliament in the oversight of government agencies, critics say, even as billions of dollars in foreign aid money pours into Ukraine.

There have also been complaints that Zelensky is too powerful and overrules the parliament:

The tumult has also intensified criticism that too much power is concentrated in the president’s office, beyond what is already granted under martial law. That has been a focus of Mr. Zelensky’s critics since the beginning of the war, when he consolidated television outlets under one state-run station and curbed the ability of ministers to act independently.

While the Times reports that the “majority of Ukrainians still support Mr. Zelensky,” “that number has fallen”. The unity that Ukraine enjoyed at the spark of the war in 2022 is no more, as the Times reports:

Divisions that emerged before the invasion have only deepened. The unanimous votes that signaled solidarity early in the invasion are a faded memory. The war muddles party discipline; rogue voting is grudgingly tolerated.

In one example, about 20 members of Parliament have formed a faction opposed to Mr. Zelensky; 15 of them formally remain in the president’s party.

…

In the more than 5,000 votes in Parliament in 2022 and 2023, the party secured a majority by itself in only 17 instances, or less than 1 percent of votes, according to Chesno, a Ukrainian analytical group.
Instead, the party has formed a strange bedfellows political partnership with the remnants of a party called Opposition Bloc that was officially disbanded in 2022 for ties to Russia. Together they have passed legislation to expand the draft, critically important for Ukraine’s war effort, and to shape oversight of agencies and rules intended to safeguard foreign aid.

The divisions have rendered the Ukrainian parliament effectively useless:

These restrictions, and the unusual alliance with the former pro-Russian party members, mean “Parliament is excluded from decision making,” said Dmytro Razumkov, a former speaker now in the political opposition.

So whats going to happen? Americans have become indifferent to Ukraine and the war has become background noise in the political discourse of American society. It looks like Trump is going to win, and with a Trump administration will the US be backing Ukraine with the same energy as the Biden administration? Just look at how Trump speaks about Zelensky, he is not too enthusiastic about helping Ukraine:

It looks like the Americans want to shift the responsibility for Ukraine to Germany, as the US will be focusing more on China. This is seen in the fact that Germany has troops in Lithuania and plans on making a permanently established brigade that Baltic country. It appears that the US is going to let Ukraine sink like a ship. In April of 2024, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, reported:

The younger generation is not likely to carry on President Biden’s level of commitment to a leading U.S. role in European security. So the United States stepping back from Europe is a matter of when, not whether.

Euro News reported that in the NATO summit the alliance “declared that Ukraine was on an irreversible path to membership of the organisation.” But Ukraine cannot become a NATO member if its in war. If the US actually wants Ukraine to become a NATO member, then it has an interest in ending the current war. With Trump being a noninterventionist, its possible that a Trump administration will play this very role, bringing an end to the fighting and thus sparking the process of NATO membership.

Source