President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has made a striking and deeply personal decision: he has imposed sanctions on ten Russian and Ukrainian nationals accused of spreading disinformation, Russian propaganda, and support for Moscow’s aggressive war against Ukraine. The list includes Yuliia Mendel, the woman who once served as his press secretary and stood at his side during some of the most critical early moments of his presidency. For many, the move feels less like a bureaucratic measure and more like a rupture—the head of state formally punishing a former close associate who now, in his view, works against her own country. The official announcement, reported by hromadske.ua, was blunt: the restrictions target people who “spread disinformation and Russian propaganda and support Russia’s aggressive policy toward Ukraine. In particular, sanctions have been imposed on Yuliia Mendel.” The inclusion of Mendel’s name is not incidental; it is the emotional and political heart of the story. A former insider who once explained Zelensky’s actions to the world has become, in the government’s eyes, an instrument of the enemy. That transformation is a powerful reminder that in wartime, loyalty, memory, and truth become contested territory, and that the line between legitimate dissent and hostile information warfare can blur in ways that are both necessary and alarming. The sanctions are not merely about punishment; they are a signal that Ukraine intends to treat certain public statements as acts with national security consequences, especially when those statements are amplified by international media and serve narratives that align with Russian interests.
But this is not only a story about one person. The same sanctions package includes a much broader set of measures targeting Russian-operated vessels and the economic machinery that keeps the Kremlin’s war machine running. Ukraine has imposed restrictions on twenty vessels belonging to Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet”—ships that carry oil, petroleum products, and liquefied gas under flags from Liberia, the Marshall Islands, Sierra Leone, Barbados, and Palau, with ports of call in India, Egypt, and Turkey. This shadow fleet is a central part of how Russia has evaded international oil sanctions, maintaining export revenue while avoiding the scrutiny that would come with transparent trading routes. By going after these ships, Ukraine is trying to pierce the gray zones of global commerce, exposing the networks that allow Russian energy to flow to willing buyers without triggering the usual legal and political consequences. Alongside the maritime measures, the sanctions package targets 29 Russian nationals and 29 Russian companies. These are not random names from a corporate registry. According to the announcement, the list includes enterprises involved in supplying components for the production of missiles and drones, manufacturers of dual-use goods, specialized IT companies, research institutes, and even an educational institution that trains specialists for the Kalashnikov concern. This is a deliberate attempt to strike at the scientific, technical, and industrial foundations of Russia’s military capacity. It is also a statement of intent: Ukraine is not waiting for other countries to act. It is building its own sanctions architecture, mapping the hidden structures of Russian military production, and preparing to share that knowledge with international partners in the hope of creating a more coordinated and effective global pressure campaign. The message is clear—Ukraine understands that defeating Russia requires not only courage on the battlefield but also a relentless dismantling of the economic and logistical networks that sustain the war.
The sanctions against Yuliia Mendel did not emerge from a vacuum. In May, Mendel sat down for an interview with Tucker Carlson, the American right-wing commentator and blogger known for giving a platform to voices that question support for Ukraine. During that conversation, Mendel made a series of explosive claims. She said she had spoken with members of the Ukrainian delegation who participated in the 2022 negotiations in Istanbul, the early peace talks that many observers hoped might end the war almost before it fully began. According to Mendel, those delegation members told her they “would have agreed to anything” at the time. She further claimed that Zelenskyy himself had personally agreed to surrender the Donbas, the eastern Ukrainian region that Russia has partially occupied and claimed as its own. She then went further, suggesting that the president was involved in money laundering and accusing him of worsening relations between Ukraine and the United States. Perhaps most startlingly, Mendel said she had met people who claimed to have seen Zelenskyy using drugs at various clubs. She painted a portrait of a leader far removed from the image of the wartime president who rallies his people with Churchillian speeches. “We see Putin as evil, but Zelenskyy is evil too—just concealed,” Mendel said. “On camera, he plays a teddy bear, but when the lights go out, he turns into a grizzly that destroys people.” The accusation is colorful, dramatic, and extremely damaging if true. But it is also completely unverified. Mendel offered no documents, no recordings, no named witnesses, only stories and impressions. In a time of war, when every word can be weaponized, such remarks are not just controversy—they are ammunition.
The response from Ukraine’s Presidential Office was swift, scathing, and dismissive. Officials rejected Mendel’s credibility outright, noting that she did not participate in the negotiations or in making state decisions. They wondered aloud why anyone should treat her claims seriously. “This woman did not participate in the negotiations or in decision-making, has been out of her mind for a long time, and commenting on who may have told her something or whether it actually happened would be unserious,” the office said. That is a remarkable statement for a government to make about its former press secretary, and it reveals the raw contempt that now exists between Mendel and the administration she once served. It also raises a difficult question: is the government dismissing Mendel because she is lying, or because she is inconvenient? Her defenders would argue that she was inside the room, that she knows the personalities and the private dynamics, and that her critique deserves a more careful response than insults. Her detractors would argue that she has become a tool of Russian propaganda, that her interview was designed to destabilize Ukraine and undermine Western support, and that she is doing in civilian life what Moscow’s soldiers are trying to do on the battlefield. The truth may be more complicated than either version. Mendel may be sincere in her criticisms, even as she amplifies narratives that happen to serve the Kremlin. She may be exaggerating, or she may be telling a version of events that she genuinely believes. The problem is that in a war, sincerity is not the only standard. The effect of the words matters as much as the intention behind them, and accusations against a wartime president—especially accusations of drug use, corruption, and secret surrender—can have real consequences for Ukraine’s standing abroad.
Mendel, for her part, has not backed down. She responded to the Presidential Office by demanding that it raise its ethical standards of communication, accusing its representatives of losing touch with reality. She turned the focus back onto the government’s own alleged corruption, saying that many of Zelenskyy’s closest associates, the people he has protected for years, are suspected of laundering hundreds of millions of hryvnias. She questioned the moral authority of a government that would punish her for speaking while allowing thieves to remain in power. “And insulting a former press secretary for criticizing them is not the level of communication expected from a country’s leader,” she said. There is a certain narrative symmetry here. Mendel presents herself as a truth-teller, once part of the system and now brave enough to confront it. The government presents itself as the defender of the country against both external aggression and internal sabotage. Both sides claim to be fighting for Ukraine. Both sides claim the moral high ground. The reality is probably less clean. Mendel was not a central decision-maker, but she was close enough to know things that ordinary citizens do not. The Presidential Office may be right that her claims are baseless and harmful, but its refusal to engage with the substance beyond calling her crazy leaves uncomfortable questions hanging in the air. It also highlights the deeper anxiety within the Ukrainian government: in a war defined by information as much as by artillery, dissenting voices can be framed as traitors, and the tools of national security can easily become tools of political suppression.
What does this episode reveal about Ukraine’s approach to the information war and to the broader sanctions campaign? On one level, it shows that Ukraine is taking an aggressive and proactive stance. It is not waiting for other countries to identify Russian propaganda networks; it is going after them directly, even when that means sanctioning its own citizens. The inclusion of Mendel sends a warning to anyone, especially former insiders, who might be tempted to use their credibility and access to spread narratives that align with Russian interests. It is a demonstration of strength and also a demonstration of fear—a sign that the government recognizes how vulnerable it is to disinformation, particularly when it comes from people with inside knowledge. At the same time, the sanctions against the shadow fleet and the military-industrial companies show that Ukraine is thinking strategically about the global economy. By targeting ships and suppliers, Kyiv is undermining the logistical and financial infrastructure of the war, and by sharing information with international partners, it is trying to build a coalition that can act with greater precision and impact. This is not only a legal or economic move; it is a bid to shape the narrative that Russia’s war machine is not invincible, that it can be starved of resources, that transparency can be forced onto the hidden networks that keep the conflict alive. The Mendel sanctions are the controversial face of this effort, the part that makes people uncomfortable and forces them to ask hard questions about freedom of speech and due process during wartime. But they are also inseparable from the larger story of a nation fighting for its survival, trying to defend itself against foreign aggression and domestic manipulation. Whether one sees Zelensky’s action as necessary protection or dangerous overreach, it is impossible to ignore the human tragedy behind it: a former press secretary and her president, once allies, now standing on opposite sides of a war that has already consumed so much of their country’s future. The sanctions against Mendel are not just a policy; they are a broken relationship, written into the official record.