Given the Chance, Ukrainians Would Give Zelensky the Boot
A fifth of those who say they do not trust him cite corruption as the main reason, and 59 percent of Ukrainians blame Zelensky personally for the extent of corruption in Ukraine today.
The wartime leader’s favorability ratings have plummeted.
Ted Snider, Nicolai N. Petro, Sep 18, 2026, https://www.theamericanconservative.com/given-the-chance-ukrainians-would-give-zelensky-the-boot/
There was a time, not very long ago, when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was lionized around the world and spectacularly popular at home. But, if elections were held today, he would struggle to finish in the top three.
Zelensky came to power in a landslide victory in 2019. His term, constitutionally limited to five years, has now stretched to over seven years because of the war. Although it is true that 57 percent of Ukrainians say they do not want to hold elections during the war, it is simply not true that it is unconstitutional to hold presidential elections until the fighting stops.
The western media has provided cover for Zelensky by reporting that presidential elections are not permitted by Ukraine’s constitution at time of war. But while Ukrainian law prohibits parliamentary, presidential, and local elections under martial law, the highest law in the land, the Ukrainian constitution (Article 83), speaks only of the parliament as being able to extend its authority in the event that martial law is declared and elections cannot be held. It pointedly says nothing about extending the term of the president.
This omission was deliberate: The authors of the constitution feared that some future president might declare martial law precisely to prevent removal from office. Indeed, Zelensky’s predecessor, Petro Poroshenko, was accused by three former presidents of Ukraine of trying this very maneuver in late 2018 in order to derail the elections that he later lost.
Setting aside tricky legal matters, where do things stand politically? Were elections to be held today, three key metrics suggest that Zelensky would suffer a similar devastating loss.
The most obvious is recent polling. Only 28 percent of Ukrainians say they want to see Zelensky remain president after the war. Other recent polls show that only around 21 percent of Ukrainians would vote for him in the next election—putting Zelensky just one point ahead of his rival, former Commander-in-Chief Valeriy Zaluzhny—while other polling suggests that Zelensky would lose to Zaluzhny. Meanwhile, a number of “closed polls,” those commissioned by the government for internal use only, apparently show that he would probably lose to Kyrylo Budanov, the former intelligence chief and Zelensky’s current chief of staff.
The second metric may be even more important. Current polling shows that no candidate would win the required majority in the first round, thus necessitating a runoff round. Since he has the highest number of Ukrainians who say they would not vote for him under any circumstances, one can infer that Zelensky would be soundly defeated in this round under any scenario. A recent poll indicates that Zaluzhny would defeat him by a margin of 66 to 34 percent; Budanov would defeat him by 60 to 40 percent; and even the recently fired minister of defense, Mykhailo Fedorov, would beat him by a whopping 64 to 36 percent.
The third metric is trust. In an ever-shifting field of hypothetical candidates, how much Ukrainians trust their candidate may be the most important question of all. And here, Zelensky does even worse. When the question is trust, Zelensky places a distant sixth.
Zaluzhny comes in first with 28 percent of respondents fully trusting him, 37 percent trusting him somewhat, 12 percent somewhat distrusting him, and 18 percent not trusting him at all. Fedorov and Budanov are more trusted than Zelensky, as are Mykhailo Drapatyi, the current commander of the Ukrainian armed forces, and even Robert Brovdi, commander of the Unmanned Systems Forces. Only 18 percent say they fully trust Zelensky and 25 percent somewhat trust him, while 37 percent say they do not trust him at all.Government corruption is a big reason for Zelensky’s collapse. A fifth of those who say they do not trust him cite corruption as the main reason, and 59 percent of Ukrainians blame Zelensky personally for the extent of corruption in Ukraine today. And this perception is unlikely to change for the better, as new corruption scandals are exposed. They already reach deep into Zelensky’s inner circle and personal staff. Last year, these scandals took out Zelensky’s powerful chief of staff, Andriy Yermak. More recently, they have hit three deputy chiefs of staff and Yermak’s successor, Budanov, not to mention several government ministers and Ukraine’s chief prosecutor.
Popular reluctance, as well as the logistics of holding elections under the strain of war, will prevent elections from taking place any time soon. But when this horrible war finally ends and Ukrainians return to the polls, if democracy is permitted a full and unimpeded voice, then Zelensky, Ukraine’s acclaimed wartime president, will probably not be its peacetime president.
New Mexico lawmakers warn of ‘urgent threat’ over federal nuclear oversight shortfalls
sis for the changes and that the new directives pose serious risks to the residents of New Mexico,” the lawmakers write.
“The RHMC is gravely concerned that these extensive changes to nuclear safety requirements have moved forward without sufficient transparency or critical review regarding the technical and experiential basis for the changes and that the new directives pose serious risks to the residents of New Mexico,” the lawmakers write.
By Matthew Mondschein-September 17, 2026
A bipartisan committee of the New Mexico Legislature on Wednesday warned that two developments in the federal government’s nuclear administration — the rollback of safety requirements and the obstruction of independent safety oversight — have created an “urgent threat” to workers, communities and national security.
The Legislature’s Radioactive and Hazardous Materials Committee unanimously approved letters from its chair, state Sen. Jeff Steinborn (D-Las Cruces), to U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright and one to both Wright and President Donald Trump calling for immediate federal intervention to address nuclear safety concerns. The letters, which the committee announced in a news release, also were sent to the state’s congressional delegation, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and other state officials.
The letter to Wright raises concerns about the so-called “Project Velocity,” which the letter characterizes as DOE’s “effort to reduce its regulatory requirements.”
Last month, the letter says, the DOE issued 46 new or revised directives.
“The RHMC is gravely concerned that these extensive changes to nuclear safety requirements have moved forward without sufficient transparency or critical review regarding the technical and experiential basis for the changes and that the new directives pose serious risks to the residents of New Mexico,” the lawmakers write.
In a letter addressed to both Trump and Wright, lawmakers wrote that the 46 new or revised directives issued by the U.S Department of Energy in August “moved forward without sufficient transparency or critical review” and that subject matter experts “were kept in the dark.”
In a letter addressed to both Trump and Wright, lawmakers wrote that the 46 new or revised directives issued by the U.S Department of Energy in August “moved forward without sufficient transparency or critical review” and that subject matter experts “were kept in the dark.”
The DOE removed or weakened requirements that were developed by prior safety concerns, the letter continues, citing the removal of emergency preparedness requirements and the process for employees to raise technical safety concerns. The effort to revise the directives was to “remove unnecessary barriers” in federal nuclear operations. Energy Secretary Wright said in a statement in August.
U.S. Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) and U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) also called on Secretary Wright to justify the directive changes in their own letter, also sent on Wednesday.
New Mexico’s lawmakers also point out that some of the now-eliminated safety requirements were implemented due to mishaps in New Mexico, including the multiyear shutdown at the plutonium facility in Los Alamos Laboratory and a 2014 incident at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in which radioactive material leaked and exposed 21 workers to low amounts of radiation.
The letter to both Wright and Trump details concerns regarding “the collapse in communication and cooperation” between the DOE and the U.S. Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, which provides oversight and safety recommendations for the nation’s nuclear facilities.
The letter also calls on Trump to fill the rest of the safety board seats. Currently, the five-member safety board only has one Senate-confirmed member, making the three-member quorum needed to issue formal safety recommendations impossible.
“New Mexico understands better than almost any state what is at stake when the nation’s nuclear weapons enterprise operates without strong, independent safety oversight,” Steinborn said in a statement. “Protecting workers, communities and the American public is a national security responsibility. President Trump and Secretary Wright must put Americans’ safety first by restoring the DNFSB’s full access and ensuring that changes to nuclear safety requirements are transparent, technically justified and independently reviewed.”The nuclear oversight board was denied access to observing biweekly safety meetings, received redacted information on safety reports and were not provided technical reviews on eight occasions from Jan. 1- June 30, according to a report to Congress from July.
UK Government confirms dismantling of Swiftsure is on track, but with spiralling costs
the ‘whole life cost’ of the Submarine Dismantling Project (SDP), there will be 27 decommissioned boats to get rid of, has spiralled by another £89m to almost £500m.
At the beginning of 2025 it was just under £300m – and this does not include the money it will take to dispose of the remaining 26.
it will take several decades to get rid of the remaining 26 boats.
26th September,
https://www.dunfermlinepress.com/news/26582886.uk-government-confirms-dismantling-swiftsure-track/
WORKERS at Rosyth Dockyard are on target to dismantle and recycle an old nuclear submarine by the end of the year.
The world first ‘demonstrator’ project to cut up HMS Swiftsure and remove her radioactive waste remains on schedule, the UK Government has confirmed.
However the ‘whole life cost’ of the Submarine Dismantling Project (SDP), there will be 27 decommissioned boats to get rid of, has spiralled by another £89m to almost £500m.
At the beginning of 2025 it was just under £300m – and this does not include the money it will take to dispose of the remaining 26.
Responding to a series of questions in parliament, Luke Pollard, minister of state at the MoD, said: “Progress continues to be made, and the department remains committed to dismantling Swiftsure by the end of 2026 safely, effectively and in accordance with regulatory requirements.
“The increase in the project’s whole life cost is primarily due to the maturation of infrastructure (alongside other costs), while the end date extended to October 2028 represents the formal closure of the project and is separate from the milestone to complete the recycling of Swiftsure by 2026.”
The SDP is a world-first engineering programme designed to safely defuel, strip and recycle 27 decommissioned Royal Navy nuclear submarines.
The specialist team at Rosyth is leading the way as no other country has attempted to remove the reactor pressure vessels, the most radioactive part of the vessels.
Swiftsure is serving as the ‘demonstrator’ boat to establish a repeatable, standardised process for the rest of the fleet.
The first of her class, she was a nuclear-powered attack submarine whose primary role was intelligence gathering, anti-submarine and anti-ship warfare.
Swiftsure entered service in 1973 and was decommissioned in 1992.
Once the methodology is perfected, it’s expected that each sub will take 12 to 18 months to fully process.
The MoD expects that it will take several decades to get rid of the remaining 26 boats.
Dunfermline and Dollar MP Graeme Downie wants that work to be carried out here, he said that establishing the dockyard as a centre of excellence for dismantling old subs would guaranteeing decades of skilled, well paid jobs.
However, anti-nuclear campaigner and Rosyth councillor, Brian Goodall, has opposed this move and wants the “environmental time bombs” taken away from the town as soon as possible.
Seven subs have been laid up at the dockyard for decades, the last one arriving in 1996.
As well as HMS Swiftsure, there is HMS Churchill, HMS Resolution, HMS Repulse, HMS Revenge and HMS Renown.
HMS Dreadnought has been there for so long – since 1980 – that much of her low-level radiation has “disappeared naturally”.
In November 2022 local councillors were told of a UK Government pledge to “de-nuclearise Rosyth” by 2035.
While it has committed to dismantling all 27 subs, it will learn lessons from cutting up Swiftsure before finalising the plans for the remaining 26 vessels.
It’s thought that, as the other six vessels at Rosyth have already been defuelled and the skilled workforce and infrastructure is already at the yard, these boats will be next in line.
Another 15 subs are at Devonport – just four have had their fuel removed – and five more are due to come out of service.
Approved in 2013, the SDP aims to recover, reuse, or conventionally recycle approximately 90 per cent of each submarine’s total weight.
The three stages involve removing low-level radioactive waste; removing the reactor pressure vessel, which is classed as intermediate level waste; and, once all radioactive material has gone, recycling.
More than 200 people are working on the project at Rosyth and, by late 2024, more than £200m had been spent on it.
The high-quality steel that’s recovered is going into building the next generation of nuclear subs.
Low level waste that’s removed from the subs is processed and sent to a repository in West Cumbria.
The reactor pressure vessels are classed as intermediate level waste (ILW) and will be sent to Capenhurst in Cheshire for interim storage, above ground and in secure containers.
In the long term, the policy is to bury all ILW waste from the subs in a permanent, deep underground geological disposal facility.
The proposed site is not yet known and the UK Government estimates it will not be operational until sometime after 2040.
Zelensky’s strategy is national suicide
Iuliia Mendel, 26 Sept 26
For Americans who follow the Russian-Ukrainian war, the past few months must look very strange. In the first half of summer, the story from Kyiv – and the many western media outlets that repeated it – was that Ukraine was winning. Then, not long after the NATO summit in July, Kyiv announced it lacked the interceptors to prevent a winter disaster. The country needed 300 missiles to survive, we were told. Even if these 300 missiles arrive, they are unlikely to protect a country as large as Ukraine from the sheer volume of Russian ballistic attacks and glide-bomb strikes. Now it’s September, and Ukraine says it’s facing a $27 billion shortfall in defense funding. There seems to be a vast difference between the public relations campaign and the reality in Ukraine………. (Sunscribers only) https://spectator.com/article/zelenskys-strategy-is-national-suicide/
‘UK spends twice as much switching off windfarms as it does on small nuclear reactors’
More than £1 billion has been forked out in constraint
payments this year until the end of August – a 60 per cent increase on last
year. The UK government has paid almost twice as much to turn off windfarms
in Scotland as it plans to spend on developing small modular nuclear
reactors by the end of this decade, industry leaders have said. The Nuclear
Industry Association said ministers plan to invest £2.8 billion in the
technology, compared with £5.1bn in so-called constraint payments that
have been made since 2021. Some £1.04bn was forked out in constraint
payments this year up until the end of August. This is up from £648m in
the same period last year.
Scotsman 26th Sept 2026 https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/uk-spends-twice-as-much-switching-off-windfarms-as-it-does-on-small-nuclear-reactors-9176795
UP FOR GRABS: Button pushed for new SMR spending round
energy economists point out that fixed costs (such as 24/7 security, exclusion zones and
energy economists point out that fixed costs (such as 24/7 security, exclusion zones and regulatory licensing) do not diminish proportionally with a smaller reactor…………….. “economies of scale come by making something bigger, not by making something smaller.”
By Simon Hacker | 25th September 2026
Businesses across Gloucestershire and the Cotswolds are being urged to throw in their hats for a share of £1.4bn in contracts to supply Rolls-Royce SMR‘s pathway for small nuclear reactors.
Rolls-Royce SMR said its new Supplier Programme gives UK firms a chance to bid for a slice of the contracts pie over the next year, the move aiming to support the company and Great British Energy-Nuclear (GBE-N) in its quest to achieve more than 70% UK fleet content for the Gwyndod (Wylfa) project in North Wales.
The invitation comes as SMR technology remains, as yet, unapproved for final implementation in Western markets: two demonstration operations in China and Russia (a floating project on the Arctic) are active as pilots, but elsewhere, while technical viability is proven, Rolls-Royce SMR remains engaged in a process to steal a lead on US rivals by concluding a Generic Design Assessment stage with regulators.
Since being formed in 2021, Rolls-Royce SMR said it had already spent more than £300m with UK based suppliers – equivalent to 88% of its total spend to date – and held three UK supplier events, formally engaging with more than 650 UK firms.
It hailed this launch as a “major milestone in establishing a resilient, high-value UK supply chain, capable of delivering at scale and supporting our export programme”.
Funding for SMR development is a mixed picture of streams from private investment and the UK taxpayer, with government documents showing that the £1.4bn reported here is derived from general taxation (via government spending), the ultimate goal of the SMR programme being to transition to a mix of private investment and consumer energy bills.
To date, the amount that Rolls-Royce SMR has drawn down and spent from the taxpayer is not isolated to a single figure, given that government funding shifts between committed grants, commercial loans and site purchases.
But in terms of money the government has formally spent or legally committed to Rolls-Royce SMR so far, the taxpayer footprint is reported to stand at around £830m in direct development funds, within a wider £2.6bn total programme allocation…………………
Chris Cholerton, CEO of Rolls-Royce SMR, said the scale of the opportunity in unlocking £1.4bn that is now available to UK suppliers from the Rolls-Royce SMR programme was significant.
“As the only SMR provider with multiple contractual commitments in Europe, we want to partner with the best of UK industry, to maximise their opportunity to contribute to our growing European fleet.”
It’s not quite over the line, but Rolls-Royce SMR has successfully completed Step Two of the GDA which makes it the leading SMR vendor in Europe in the race to provide the continent’s required legal paperwork for the technology……………………….
Rolls-Royce SMR said: “Through workshops, industry events and expert guidance, the Programme will demystify the sector, help suppliers understand regulatory and commercial requirements, and make it easier for companies to explore opportunities within the Rolls-Royce SMR supply chain.Participating suppliers will benefit from greater visibility of future supply chain requirements and access to potential opportunities across the programme. They will also have opportunities to engage directly with Rolls-Royce SMR and supply chain procurement teams through briefings, networking events and meet-the-buyer sessions.”
WIth the economic viability remaining as yet untested advocates of SMRs maintain that by building reactors in factories, rather than on-site, costs will plummet. However, energy economists point out that fixed costs (such as 24/7 security, exclusion zones and regulatory licensing) do not deminish proportionally with a smaller reactor.
Here in Gloucestershire, Stroud-based Ecotricity boss Dale Vince has taken a leading role as an ardent critic of the SMR concept, having argued that “economies of scale come by making something bigger, not by making something smaller.”
Trying to make cheap “mini nukes”, Mr Vince said, ignores the fact that miniaturising complex, highly regulated technology naturally drives costs up, not down.………
https://www.punchline-gloucester.com/articles/aanews/button-pushed-for-new-smr-spending-round
White House thinks it’s above the law
Judge rules media ban clearly unconstitutional
| Freedom of the Press Foundation, 25 Sept 25 |
Yesterday, U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly ruled that President Donald Trump could not bar CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House, rejecting the administration’s argument that “national security” concerns justified the ban. But despite Kelly’s temporary restraining order, all three outlets reported hours later that they were still being blocked from entering the premises. Compliance since has been spotty at best.
“Government officials who continue to deny journalists’ access to the White House in defiance of Kelly’s order should be held in contempt,” Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) Chief of Advocacy Seth Stern said. “And it’s long past time for judges to start aggressively sanctioning DOJ lawyers when they make frivolous national security arguments to turn Trump’s petty grievances against the press into government policy.”
Building the foundations for regulatory collaboration
UK and Swedish nuclear regulators have taken a significant step towards
international collaboration on small modular reactor deployment, with a
workshop supported by the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and
Trade, designed to accelerate the safe rollout of the technology across
both countries. The workshop followed the recent announcement in June, that
the Swedish utility Videberg Kraft had selected Rolls-Royce SMR Ltd to
supply small modular nuclear reactors, representing the first new nuclear
build in Sweden for more than 40 years. Videberg Kraft, owned by Vattenfall
and a group of Sweden’s largest companies, plans to develop this new
nuclear power capacity alongside the site of the existing Ringhals nuclear
facility in southwest Sweden.
ONR 10th Sept 2026, https://www.onr.org.uk/news/all-news/2026/09/building-foundations-for-regulatory-collaboration
White Paper aims to facilitate safe and secure transport of radioactive materials
A series of recommendations have been made to mitigate the
denial or delay of transport of radioactive materials which nuclear power
plants, hospitals, industries and researchers rely on. Details of the White
Paper on the Facilitation of the Safe and Secure Transport of Radioactive
Material, which was prepared by the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA)’s Denial of Shipment Working Group, were presented at a side event
at the IAEA’s 70th General Conference.
There are more than 20 million
packages needing to be transported each year, and IAEA Director General
Rafael Mariano Grossi told the packed meeting that although there had been
progress with the issue, it “continues to present challenges
internationally. Denials and delays are subtle but extremely negative
things that continue to happen” even with “companies in countries that are
in favour of the transportation. So there is a problem in communication,
which should not exist. I think it’s high time we really tackle this issue
in a concerted way, in a coherent way and try to solve it as much as we
can”.
World Nuclear News 25th Sep 2026, https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/white-paper-aims-to-facilitate-safe-transport-of-radioactive-materials
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