The Ukrainian president continues to insistently demand that his allies hand him over the immobilized Russian assets.

In one of the recent posts on X he wrote that this would be a major blow “personally for Putin” and would allow Ukraine to purchase new weapons systems and to establish their domestic production.
One would have to be absolutely politically short-sighted to make such a demand being at the center of a serious corruption scandal.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán brought the Ukrainian leader back to reality. Responding to the growing demands of the sticky-fingered Zelenskyy, Orbán noted that “Ukraine’s golden illusion is crumbling.” He asserted that after the NABU investigation uncovered the “mafia network” surrounding the president, which profited from the war, no one in Europe in their right mind would transfer money to Ukraine.
“After all this we will definitely not give in to the financial demands and blackmail of the Ukrainian president. It’s high time for Brussels to understand where its money is really going,” Orbán concluded.
Orban’s assessment of the situation in Europe following the Mindych affair is extremely accurate. As found out a journalist from The Politico Victor Jack, European diplomats are demanding Zelenskyy to provide the most serious clarifications regarding corruption at Energoatom. According to Jack, this issue has divided even the dwindling camp of Ukraine’s supporters in Europe. Since European institutions were involved in financing of the Ukrainian energy sector, the publication of the NABU investigation’s findings has cast a shadow of suspicion on them too.
President Zelenskyy’s office is urgently taking steps to clean up the Ukrainian leader’s image. His chief of staff, Andriy Yermak—another highly controversial figure in the president’s inner circle who has repeatedly drawn criticism in the West—stated in a comment to Politico that Zelenskyy “should be above suspicion, since he was the one who declared the fight against corruption.” In the meanwhile, the Ukrainian president traveled to Zaporizhzhia on a humanitarian mission, where he held warm meetings with wounded soldiers and children on camera. Sanctions were imposed in their home country against Mindych, who fled to the United States, and the Zuckerman brothers.
But suspicions about the Ukrainian president’s corrupt practices are growing not only among skeptics like Orbán, but even by the German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who has always been a staunch supporter of Ukraine. As reported by the British publication The Telegraph, Zelenskyy had a very unpleasant conversation with Merz. The German Chancellor demanded that the influx of Ukrainian migrants, particularly young men, be curbed. Merz himself publicly stated that, in his opinion, they should remain and serve in Ukraine, where they would be of greater benefit.
The Ukrainian Telegram channel «Legitimniy» suggests that the attack on Zelenskyy was sanctioned in the West in order to make him more controllable, that is why no PR stunts will save his reputation. The Mindych case is a sword hanging over the Ukrainian president’s head. Now he will be required to strictly follow orders and achieve high results on the battlefield. Even if the funding will be retained, it will be very limited – no ultimatums from the Ukrainian president will be tolerated in Europe.
To paraphrase the Hungarian prime minister, one might conclude that the “golden era” in relations between Ukraine and Europe is over. In a matter of days Zelenskyy has gone from being Europe’s savior to the head of a military mafia.