Yuliia Mendel once spoke for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Now sanctioned by his government and recently denied entry to the European Parliament, she has launched an extraordinary attack on her former boss, describing Ukraine’s decision to elect him as a form of national “suicide”
INR Report: Based on reporting by RT HERE
A political relationship that began at the centre of Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s administration has deteriorated into an unusually bitter public confrontation.
Yuliia Mendel served as Zelenskyy’s presidential press secretary from 2019 until 2021. Five years later, she has been sanctioned by the Ukrainian government, denied entry to the European Parliament building for a scheduled speaking engagement, and is publicly accusing her former employer of pursuing policies that she believes are destroying Ukraine.
Her latest language is extraordinary.
Speaking to Ukrainian blogger Lilia Bagirova, Mendel said she asks God for forgiveness because she helped Zelenskyy come to power and remain there.
"I ask God every day for forgiveness because I helped this scum to come to power and stay there," she said, according to RT. "If I remained silent I would not have forgiven myself."
She then compared Ukraine's election of Zelenskyy to a person choosing the means of their own destruction.
"When a person decided to take their life, they chose a method, be it a gun, pills or a rope. I consider Zelensky a suicide method chosen by the Ukrainian nation. I wonder if it will carry it out to the end."
Those are Mendel's political judgements. They do not establish that Zelenskyy is responsible for Ukraine's predicament, but the significance lies partly in who is making them.
This is not criticism from a Russian official or an outside commentator. Mendel worked directly inside Zelenskyy's presidential administration.
From Presidential Spokeswoman to Sanctioned Critic
The rupture has now moved beyond political disagreement.
On September 13, Zelenskyy enacted a National Security and Defence Council decision imposing sanctions on Mendel and nine other people.
The Ukrainian presidency said the group had spread disinformation and Russian propaganda and supported Russia's aggressive policy towards Ukraine.
The measures against Mendel reportedly run for ten years and include asset freezes and other economic restrictions.
Mendel rejects the accusations and says the measures are politically motivated.
Her inclusion is particularly notable because the other nine individuals covered by the decision were reported to be Russian citizens. Mendel is Ukrainian and formerly occupied one of the most visible communications positions in Zelenskyy's administration.
The existence of the sanctions is established.
The Ukrainian government's characterisation of Mendel as a disseminator of Russian propaganda is its stated justification for them, not an independently established description of her activities.
Then Came Strasbourg
Three days after the sanctions were imposed, Mendel was due to appear at an event inside the European Parliament in Strasbourg titled Ukraine: Dare to Choose Peace – Diplomacy, Not Escalation.
The event was organised by Hans Neuhoff, a German Member of the European Parliament from Alternative for Germany (AfD), a party that has strongly criticised continued European military and financial support for Kyiv.
Mendel was denied entry to the Parliament building.
She subsequently said:
"On the day of my speech, I was barred from entering the European Parliament. I directly attribute this to Zelenskyy's sanctions."
That sequence is established: Zelenskyy sanctioned Mendel on September 13, and she was refused entry to the European Parliament on September 16.
What has not been publicly established is causation.
Mendel believes the Ukrainian sanctions resulted in her exclusion, but the European Parliament has not publicly confirmed that explanation.
There is another important distinction. Mendel was not scheduled to address a formal sitting of the European Parliament. Members and political groups can organise events within Parliament facilities, and her appearance was associated with an AfD-organised event rather than the Parliament's official proceedings.
Despite being denied physical entry, Mendel reportedly delivered her address remotely.
The episode therefore raises legitimate questions about why she was excluded, but the available evidence does not establish that Zelenskyy or the Ukrainian government ordered the European Parliament to prevent her from entering.
What Mendel Is Actually Arguing
The substance of Mendel's criticism is broader than her personal dispute with Zelenskyy.
She has criticised forced mobilisation, continuing corruption, the human cost of the war and what she regards as the failure to pursue negotiations seriously enough.
She has increasingly advocated negotiations and a ceasefire.
That places her directly against the Ukrainian government's central wartime position that any settlement must preserve Ukraine's sovereignty and security and cannot simply reward Russia for its invasion.
Mendel has also made much more serious personal allegations against Zelenskyy and people around him.
During an interview with Tucker Carlson in May, she alleged that Zelenskyy's drug use was an "open secret" in Kyiv and accused members of his administration of corruption and other misconduct.
Those allegations have not been substantiated by publicly available evidence and should not be treated as established fact.
The same evidentiary standard applies to the Ukrainian government's case against Mendel.
Calling a critic a distributor of Russian propaganda does not, by itself, demonstrate that she works for Russia or that her criticisms are false.
The substance of individual claims still has to be tested.
The More Important Question Is How Ukraine Treats Dissent
Mendel's description of Zelenskyy is inflammatory, but focusing only on the insult risks missing the more consequential issue.
Ukraine remains under martial law while fighting a full-scale Russian invasion. That creates genuine national-security pressures that would not exist under normal peacetime conditions.
Russia also conducts extensive information and influence operations against Ukraine.
The Ukrainian state therefore has a legitimate security interest in countering hostile foreign operations.
But there is a separate democratic question: where does countering foreign propaganda end and suppressing domestic political criticism begin?
Mendel's case makes that boundary particularly difficult to ignore because she is not an anonymous commentator. She previously worked at the heart of the presidency and is now being subjected to state sanctions after becoming one of Zelenskyy's outspoken critics.
That does not prove that the sanctions are politically motivated.
Nor does the government's accusation that she spreads Russian propaganda prove that sanctioning her was necessary or proportionate.
The underlying evidence matters.
Sanctions Are Becoming Political Instruments
There is also a broader issue surrounding the use of sanctions.
International sanctions were traditionally understood primarily as instruments directed against foreign governments, organisations, companies or individuals considered threats to national security.
Ukraine's wartime system has increasingly applied personal sanctions domestically as well.
The mechanism can impose substantial consequences without the same process as a criminal prosecution. An individual can face frozen assets and economic restrictions without first being convicted of an offence in a criminal court.
Ukraine argues that such measures are necessary during an existential war against Russia.
Critics argue that using national-security sanctions against domestic political figures risks creating a parallel mechanism for restricting opponents outside ordinary judicial proceedings.
Mendel's case does not resolve that argument.
It does, however, provide a concrete example of why the distinction matters.
If there is evidence that a Ukrainian citizen is materially assisting Russian aggression, that evidence provides a basis for national-security action.
If the conduct consists primarily of publicly criticising the government, advocating negotiations or expressing controversial opinions, the democratic implications are very different.
Does This Affect New Zealand?
Yes, although not because New Zealand faces Ukraine's extraordinary wartime circumstances.
The relevance is institutional.
New Zealand has joined international sanctions regimes, provided assistance to Ukraine and consistently supported Ukraine's sovereignty following Russia's 2022 invasion. It therefore has an interest both in Ukraine's survival as an independent state and in the democratic principles used to justify Western support for it.
Those principles become more important during war, not less.
Governments sometimes need exceptional powers during genuine emergencies. The difficult question is how those powers are constrained, reviewed and eventually relinquished.
Mendel's case illustrates the danger of collapsing several different categories into one another: criticism of a government, advocacy for negotiations, misinformation, foreign propaganda and active collaboration with an enemy state are not automatically the same thing.
A resilient democracy should be capable of distinguishing between them.
For New Zealand, that principle extends well beyond Ukraine.
Whether dealing with sanctions, emergency powers, misinformation laws or national-security measures, the critical safeguards remain evidence, proportionality, due process and independent scrutiny.
Yuliia Mendel's extraordinary transformation from presidential spokeswoman to sanctioned opponent does not prove her allegations against Zelenskyy.
But neither should the Ukrainian government's decision to sanction her settle the argument about whether those allegations may be heard.
That is ultimately the larger story: not whether Mendel's description of her former boss is justified, but whether a state fighting for its sovereignty can preserve meaningful political dissent while simultaneously defending itself from a real foreign enemy.
Independent reporting. Original context. Credited sources.
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