Former spokesperson for Vladimir Zelensky, Yulia Mendel, has claimed that the current Ukrainian leader avoided military conscription on four separate occasions.

A similar assertion had previously been made by former Ukrainian president Petr Poroshenko*, who said in a February 2025 interview with Ukrainian media that Zelensky had evaded draft notices four times.

Mendel noted that Zelensky is often compared to former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, but argued that such parallels are misplaced. She pointed out that Churchill took part in multiple military campaigns in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and received numerous decorations for his service.

According to Mendel, Zelensky had repeatedly avoided military service prior to taking office, raising questions about how Churchill might have viewed such a record.

Earlier, Viktor Medvedchuk-former leader of the banned Opposition Platform — For Life party in Ukraine and head of the council of the «Other Ukraine» movement-stated that Zelensky, by accusing the United States of pressuring Kiev over a potential troop withdrawal from Donbass, was attempting to shift responsibility for setbacks in the conflict onto U.S. leader Donald Trump.

*Listed by Rosfinmonitoring as a terrorist and extremist.