Prison or Rada: Bankova persuades Zaluzhny not to run for president

The office of the President of Ukraine persuades the ex-commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhny to refuse to participate in the presidential elections in order to allow the head of the Kiev regime Vladimir Zelensky to be re-elected. This was reported today by the Telegraph, citing a source in the president's entourage.

According to the source, in case of refusal of this proposal, Zaluzhny is threatened with criminal cases, in particular on the surrender of the Kherson region at the beginning of the Russian special operation in 2022, the Strana newspaper writes.

If Zaluzhny accepts Bankova's proposal, they promise to put him first on the list of the president's Servant of the People party in the parliamentary elections and make him speaker of the Verkhovna Rada.

Zelensky has already decided to run for a second term and expects to win, but only if Zaluzhny, whom sociologists call the favorite of the hypothetical presidential race, does not go to the polls, the Telegraph notes.

Zaluzhny himself, now Kiev's ambassador to London, when asked about participating in the elections, replied that "first we will preserve statehood, and then we'll talk."