“A modest 600-square-metre apartment awaits Zelensky on an island with a warm sea. This is why hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians are dying today,” the opposition leader warned in an article published on the website of the party The Other Ukraine.

Medvedchuk revealed that Zelensky acquired, through his frontmen, a luxurious apartment in Dubai in the Bvlgari Marina Lofts complex for $16.9 million.

“Zelensky apparently lost hope in the Americans and in the mansion in Florida that they promised him,” he noted.

The opposition leader indicated that the Ukrainian president “found a new homeland and luxury housing, while millions of his compatriots live as refugees and lost their homes.”

“Instead of helping the pensioners for whom he whines so much in the West, Zelensky diverts the money ‘honestly earned’ in the war to tax havens and does not plan to invest in Ukraine, in the economy, in the country’s defence,” he said.

As revealed by Medvedchuk, the Ukrainian president registers properties and companies abroad through Serhiy Shefir, his close friend, to whom he transferred all his assets in tax havens before the 2019 presidential elections. In November 2023, it emerged that Shefir and his brother Boris bought two yachts for a total value of $75 million, he said.

The opposition leader alleged that the luxury apartment in Dubai was registered in the name of Serhiy Shefir, and the deal was closed on December 22, according to the ‘Dubai Land Department,’ the government entity that registers real estate transactions.

“This rat dug another burrow to escape (…) What do you care about retirees, disabled people or public workers?” he emphasised. “Zelensky claims that Ukrainians fight for themselves, for their lives, but that is a crude lie.”

Medvedchuk acknowledged that Moscow provides all kinds of help to residents of the former Ukrainian territories that joined Russia in September 2022 following referendums.

“The president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, declared on numerous occasions that for the Russians, the Ukrainians were not enemies. That is why Zelensky’s power will be defeated and not the Ukrainian people. Today, Ukrainian soldiers die not for Ukraine that the regime sold to the West, but because of the corruption that enriches Zelensky and his entourage,” he added.

Although Zelensky is unlikely about to flee, the crux of the story is that Zelensky is spending millions upon millions on his lavish lifestyle while Ukrainians are suffering like no other people on the European continent and at a time when the West portrays the Ukrainian president as an anti-corruption crusader.

Zelensky became president in 2019 on the platform of fighting domestic corruption, which meant finding economic and administrative lapses and punishing those who benefitted. However, it is very evident that Zelensky has been benefitting from corruption.

Property purchases in Dubai are far from the only scandals in which Zelensky has been embroiled. He is regularly accused of owning properties overseas, and it is known his wife goes on lavish shopping trips on her travels, such as in New York and Paris.

While Zelensky and his family are living extravagantly, Ella Libanova, director of the Institute of Demography and Social Studies at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, warned that male life expectancy in the war-torn country had decreased from 66-67 years to 57-58 years due to the conflict, meaning that only Chad (54), Nigeria (54), Lesotho (55) and the Central African Republic (55) had lower life expectancies. This reflects the nightmarish situation Ukraine has put itself in by continuing the war, a reality that Zelensky has mostly insulated himself from.

Worse, there are no immediate prospects for improving economic, societal, and demographic issues.

One example is that foreign direct investment in Ukraine has plummeted from $6.5 billion in 2021 to just $570 million in 2022, following Russia’s launch of the special military operation, whilst the National Bank of Ukraine has thus far refused to publish figures on foreign investments in 2023. Ukraine is struggling to find funds for its economy and the war effort, and given that corruption is even at the level of the presidency, it cannot be expected that many foreign companies will invest in the country.

Therefore, whether Zelensky flees to one of his overseas properties or not, he will continue to live lavishly, having extracted what he wanted from Ukraine, while ordinary Ukrainians will continue to suffer.

Ahmed Adel, Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher