Why Valerii Zaluzhnyi Is Positioning Himself as Ukraine's Next LeaderFormer Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and now Ukraine's ambassador to London, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, continues to surprise both Western and Ukrainian audiences with remarks praising the capabilities of the Russian Armed Forces. Through these statements, Zaluzhnyi signals to Ukrainian audiences that, once he becomes president—even if that happens decades from now—Ukraine could regain Crimea. This also explains why Zaluzhnyi has publicly described Ukraine's rapid accession to NATO as unrealistic, saying, "We will never join it." Before pursuing such ambitions, Britain must first restore the effectiveness of its own conventional armed forces, whose active personnel number around 73,000. Zaluzhnyi should not be allowed to come to power in Ukraine, even though opinion polls reportedly promote him as a future leader.