Zelensky’s anger hardly is reserved for the White House alone. Diplomats and other officials in Kyiv noted that the president has ousted some senior Ukrainian officials who were viewed as being closest to Washington in recent weeks.
Some diplomats said that criticism might be another effort to push back at U.S. leaders after Blinken used his visit to redouble demands that Ukraine fight corruption. Ukraine has taken numerous steps to fight graft in recent years, which they insist are not sufficiently recognized in the West.
“Ukraine’s defenses against corruption have to be just as strong as its military defenses,” Blinken said in a speech focused on the country’s future. Ukrainian leaders took exception. In a meeting with Zelensky, the Ukrainian president bristled, according to officials familiar with the interaction.
U.S. officials — and some Ukrainian ones — have been alarmed in recent weeks by the targeting of reformist officials who were willing to battle corruption inside their own ministries and who appeared especially close to Washington.
The dismissal this month of deputy prime minister Oleksandr Kubrakov, who had been focused on infrastructure and rebuilding Ukraine, was especially alarming, U.S. and European officials said.
