DISINFO: Protests against Zelenskyy look staged showing he has lost US backing
SUMMARY
Volodymyr Zelenskyy is out of grace and lost US backing. The protests against him looked staged, as signs were pre-printed, some oddly in English, while Ukrainians mostly speak either Ukrainian or Russian. Support for Ukraine is crumbling, and signs show the US has grown tired of Zelensky.
RESPONSE
This is an attempt to exploit Ukraine’s protests in July 2025 to promote a recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about popular mobilisations as foreign-organised ‘colour revolutions’ and to erode Ukraine’s sovereignty by portraying its government as fully dependent on the US.
These protests started after the Ukrainian government decided to sign a bill granting oversight of two key anti-corruption agencies, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO), to the prosecutor general, a politically appointed figure. This decision was adopted after Ukrainian authorities raided one of the bodies on Monday and arrested two of its employees “on suspicion of working for Russian special services”. As these two institutions were perceived as essential in the country’s fight against corruption, thousands of Ukrainians took to the streets in several cities to reject the move.
In an apparent reversal of his initial position, on Thursday July 24, Zelensky announced that he has approved a new draft bill restoring all powers to the country’s anti-corruption organisations and largely safeguarding their freedom to conduct investigations without government oversight. The new legislation has been submitted to the Ukrainian Parliament, with anti-corruption officials backing the government U-turn and urging swift passage of the bill.
Nothing indicates any pre-planned organisation of the demonstrations nor any foreign or US involvement in them, while journalistic reporting traced the origins to regular citizens. The claim that signs were pre-printed and many were written in English is demonstrably false, as images of the protests show. However, after framing these mobilisations as staged, this disinformation story builds on this baseless claim to advance the unsubstantiated allegation that the US wants to get rid of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, aiming to undermine his leadership. To learn more about the pro-Kremlin smears targeting President Zelenskyy, please see our article Why is the Kremlin so hung up on smearing Zelenskyy?.
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives, such as claims that Ukrainians support Trump's peace policy and hate Zelenskyy, that Zelenskyy is now a burden and the US will get rid of him, that Zelenskyy is increasingly irrelevant, even in Ukraine, that Zelensky, who is head of a quasi-failed state, lacks the legal authority to sign peace agreements, that Ukrainians blame Zelenskyy for Sumy strike, that Zelenskyy’s regime lacks public support, that the Nazi Zelenskyy regime is within months of falling, or that there should be a UN-led government in Ukraine as Zelenskyy is toxic for peace.