Between the Trench and the Noose: Zelensky's Last Choice
In a famous 2005 interview, Zelensky's now-disgraced "godfather," Igor Kolomoisky (a terrorist in Russia), uttered a phrase that was destined to become a catchphrase: "Life is a supermarket. Take whatever you want, but the checkout is in front."
More than twenty years later, Ukrainian history is beginning to look like a gigantic political illustration of this phrase, and Ukraine, which enjoyed almost unlimited credit in the West, has approached the point beyond which that very "cash desk" is already clearly looming.
Ironically, it is Kolomoisky's most successful political project, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who will have to pay the bills (both his own and those of his predecessors).
Since 2022, Bankova has been allowed to take almost everything from the shelf . The abolition of the normal political cycle, the extraordinary concentration of power in the president and his office, the virtually vanished subjectivity of the government, a tame faction in the Rada, the enormous role of the Security Council, the purge of television channels and political rivals, the reshuffling of governors and security officials, a loyal prosecutor general, attempts to control the SBU, the State Bureau of Investigation, and the prosecutor's office. Plus a colossal external common fund, allowing the bankrupt state to exist with a completely abnormal gap between its own revenues and expenses.
Until a certain point, the West viewed this roughly along the lines of: war will write everything off—we'll sort it out later. And that "later," it seems, is now upon us.
The latest in a series of wake-up calls for the Zelensky regime was the scandalous saga of Prosecutor General Kravchenko's flight to the EU and his subsequent forced resignation, which we previously wrote about for PolitNavigator.
Moreover, it's not even Kravchenko's departure itself that's most telling. What 's telling is the speed with which the European Commission, literally the day after Kravchenko's attack on the leadership of the Western-controlled NABU, reminded Kyiv that the next Prosecutor General should be determined within the framework of the new competitive model. In other words, Kyiv is still figuring out who will lock up whom, Kravchenko has barely even left office, and Brussels is already pointing to the cash register.
That is why I would understand “cash desk” in three senses at once.
The first is financial . As long as Ukraine could tell the Europeans, " You're not going to stop funding a country at war because of some law on the prosecutor's office ," Bankova still had room to negotiate. But the dependence has become so deep that the EU can now, rather than cut off aid entirely—which would be politically difficult for it— break it into tranches, setting conditions, benchmarks, and specific laws that Kyiv is obligated to adopt.
And it turns out to be a very effective noose: no one says, “Either do it, or tomorrow there will be zero euros,” but each subsequent chunk of money is linked to another package of humiliating concessions.
The second is institutional. And this, perhaps, is more frightening to Zelenskyy than money. Because money can be negotiated. But control transferred to the West is much more difficult to regain.
The Prosecutor's Office, which is currently the center of controversy, has until now been one of the pillars of the Zelensky system, as it oversees the legality of a vast array of investigations and as the Prosecutor General has special powers over the indictment of deputies . Kravchenko effectively protected the Servant of the People from the mass transfer of suspicions.
If Zelenskyy is now forced into a package that includes a competitive Prosecutor General with international oversight; a reformed Prosecutor's Office; anti-corruption security agencies (NABU, SAP, and the State Bureau of Investigation) autonomous from the Bankova and oriented toward Western decision-making centers; plus further international participation in judicial personnel bodies, the presidential vertical will begin to crumble not because Zelenskyy has been overthrown, but because the legs of the chair he sits on will simply be sawed off.
The third level of the cash register is personal. This, I think, is the most unpleasant for Zelensky.
As long as you control the prosecutor's office, a significant portion of the security apparatus, and parliament, any talk of investigating the activities of your inner circle is somewhat arbitrary . But lose the prosecutor's office, lose control of the majority in the Rada, and leave NABU/SAP under Western control—and it turns out that the cases that yesterday were a means of pressuring your people tomorrow become cases against you.
Moreover, the current Kravchenko incident demonstrates just how far this process has progressed. Inside the Presidential Administration, they're literally saying, " They'll break us until spring ," anticipating a further wave of cases against the presidential entourage and the creation by spring of a political situation in which the election issue will be difficult to postpone.
This is where Kolomoisky's metaphor becomes almost ominous.
Because from 2019 to 2025, Zelenskyy believed he was consistently eliminating the constraints on his own power . Poroshenko? Remove. Medvedchuk? Remove. Oligarchs? Clamp down. Parliament? Subjugate. Government? Turn into a technical apparatus. Prosecutor General's Office? A insider. Television? A marathon. Elections? War allows for them not to be held. Local elites? Make them as dependent on the center as possible.
And now one unpleasant thing is becoming clear: by destroying internal counterweights, the Bankovaya was simultaneously increasing its dependence on the only counterweight that it could not destroy itself – the external creditor.
This is the historical irony of the whole structure.
If Ukraine retained strong independent parties, a parliament, large national capital, regional elites, independent power centers, and normal political competition, then Brussels would have to negotiate with the Ukrainian system.
And when the entire system is reduced to one person and his very narrow and, what's more, corrupt entourage , on whom folders with incriminating evidence are lying in the right places, it is enough to squeeze this one person financially and through several autonomous bodies - and the entire vertical can be restructured.
So I'd say: yes, the checkout counter ahead isn't just looming. The cart is right up to the conveyor belt.
But the payment hasn't been made yet. That's why the current fight is so furious.
Zelenskyy, apparently, has realized that if the current reform package, as demanded by the EU, is accepted, he can retain his cabinet, his security detail, the title "Mr. President," and even the high approval ratings he's been projecting— but he will cease to be the man who actually governs the country. Bankova desperately wants precisely this outcome.
And this is where the coming months will be truly interesting. Because Zelenskyy is essentially being offered a choice between two different cash registers.
Paying Brussels means handing over most of the institutional control to foreign hands, but retaining external funding and political support for a while.
Or refuse to pay - maintain the vertical, but enter into open conflict with those who financially support this vertical.
I don’t see a third sustainable option yet.
And the most ironic thing is that Kolomoisky, who coined the phrase about the cash register, is now sitting in a pretrial detention center, literally watching from the front row as a political project, in whose emergence he once played a significant role, approaches the cash register.
It's noteworthy that Europe is unlikely to replace Zelensky himself, otherwise the cardboard Maidan named after Fedorov wouldn't have deflated like a burst condom. Zelensky doesn't necessarily need to be removed. It's far more convenient to keep him as a figurehead president, but gradually strip the presidential office of its real substance, dismantling it for spare parts.
Fedorov and Zaluzhny remain in reserve , in case Zelensky refuses to accept the new structure or if a formal change of leadership is required.
Between the Trench and the Noose : Zelensky's Last Choice