Seymour Hersh: Is the Trump Administration planning a coup against Ukrainian President Zelenskyy?

Seymour Hersh just reported on what he makes sound like a US coup plan against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, with the current Ukrainian Ambassador to Britain, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi:

Zaluzhnyi is now seen as the most credible successor to Zelensky. I have been told by knowledgeable officials in Washington that that job could be his within a few months. Zelensky is on a short list for exile, if President Donald Trump decides to make the call. If Zelensky refuses to leave his office, as is most likely, an involved US official told me: “He’s going to go by force. The ball is in his court.” There are many in Washington and in Ukraine who believe that the escalating air war with Russia must end soon, while there’s still a chance to make a settlement with its president, Vladimir Putin.

There are indications that Zelensky knows what is coming. He has just shifted or fired three officials: the minister of defense, the prime minister, and the ambassador to the United States. As the US official told me, Zelensky “is beginning to read the danger signs.”

What happens next, the official added, in terms of political violence inside Kiev and elsewhere, depends largely “on the degree to which the population has reached the point where they have no other choice. Zelensky will not go willingly but feet first. Herein lies a US internal debate. Smart side says let the Ukrainians sort it out by themselves and not get the CIA involved to seal the deal. So far, good sense drives the policy. But some unnamed leaders are impatient and this will take time—more than fifty days.” [my emphasis] (1)

I don’t know what to make of this. And it’s easy to imagine numerous ways that someone might spin a story like this to a reporter. Hoping that Zelenskyy and his government may take it as a serious threat is obviously one of them.

Or, it could be some neocon trying to paint Zelenskyy’s critics as Russian dupes or willing collaborators:

Meanwhile, I was unable to learn whether Putin was aware of the US desire to push Zelensky out, but I did learn that Zaluzhnyi has maintained a working relationship with Valery Gerasimov, chief of staff of the Russian armed forces and a Putin confidant. Gerasimov, as I have previously written, was one of the few to know in advance that Zaluzhnyi would tell the Economist that the war was stalemated.

Given the stunning inept diplomacy and ham-fisted actions that we’ve seen during Trump 2.0 so far, the idea that this crew could pull off something so complicated as a coup on behalf of the Russians or on behalf of some Peace President master plan to end the war seems like a real stretch of the imagination.

Hersh also reports a US official telling him is getting desperate to end the war because of the level of Russian casualties:

I have been provided with new Russian casualty numbers, from carefully evaluated US and British intelligence estimates, that show that Russia has suffered two million casualties—nearly double the current public numbers—since Putin started the war in early 2022. “Putin is not afraid of losing power, but he is losing popularity,” the US official said, “and Donald Trump is Zelensky’s supplier and the only one who can keep the Ukraine war going. Who’s got real power? It isn’t Zelensky. His only lifeline is the US. Trump is asking, ‘How do we get the pissants to stop? He thinks he’s the only one who can make the deal.

Given the chaotic mess of the current administration, it wouldn’t surprise me if wild schemes, like this one sounds to be, were kicking around inside it.

But since doesn’t have the diplomatic talent to answer an annoying question from a reporter in an awful way, pulling off a plan this elaborate is very difficult to imagine from the Trump crew. But it may win him the Nobel Prize for Botched Coup Plans.

Or maybe his people suddenly discovered the coup of 1963 against South Vietnam’s endorsed by the Kennedy Administration and decided to try to duplicate it in Ukraine. The coup was supposed to better enable to let the South Vietnamese defeat North Vietnam and the Vietcong. That part really didn’t work out so well.

In a speech to Chatham House in March of this year, Zaluzhnyi made the following opaque remarks:

It was through Ukraine, which seemingly lost the ability to solve the problem of war on its own in 2023, mainly due to the fears of our partners, that forced Russia to openly create the so-called Axis – the Axis of Evil. Who is part of this Axis – you all understand perfectly. And it was then, back in 2024, when these countries were concluding strategic agreements, that it was necessary to consider whether this was a continuation of the policy of revising the current world order system. …

Human and economic losses in Ukraine, spending resources on war, migration, sanctions policy, lack of cheap energy resources and markets, as well as other problems have become a colossal economic burden for the economies of all sides involved in the war, slowing down their development and creating risks of already global crises.

After all, the war in Ukraine has practically exhausted the economic and industrial “margin of strength” in most countries, especially Russia, the United States, and Europe. They really lack resources to continue military actions, while the deployment of weapons production turned out to be excessive if agreements to end hostilities were reached.

Thus, we can assert that there are formal reasons for revising the world order today. The starting point for such a revision, of course, can be considered the future end of the war in Ukraine and the formation of a new world order precisely according to its results. Indeed, the old world order itself is already almost completely destroyed today. For example, it is obvious today that the White House has questioned the unity of the Western world. In addition, Washington is already trying to shift the security and defence of Europe to their own forces, without the United States. (2)

We’ll see what develops. But Hersh’s report is at least worth noticing for reference in the near term.

Notes:

(1) Hersh, Seymour (2025): The End for Zelensky? Substack 07/18/2025. <https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/the-end-for-zelensky> (Accessed: 2025-18-07).

(2) Valerii Zaluzhnyi: The old world order has been destroyed. Ukraine World Congress 03/07/2025. <https://www.ukrainianworldcongress.org/valerii-zaluzhnyi-the-old-world-order-has-been-destroyed/> (Accessed: 2025-18-07).