Former Zelensky Spokesperson Yulia Mendel, from 2019 to 2021, told Tucker Carlson that her earlier interview with him this year triggered official retaliation, including sanctions and a linguistic review that could lead to treason charges carrying 15 years to life in prison under martial law.
Mendel said Zelensky ordered the review after the first conversation and that she was sanctioned days after announcing a September 2026 speech to Alternative for Germany (AfD) lawmakers in the European Parliament on the need for peace.
When she arrived on September 16, she said she was barred from the building by European Parliament President Roberta Metsola. Organizers were told she would spread “Russian propaganda.” Video of the remarks was still transmitted with AfD help.
She described the episode as part of broader restrictions on Ukrainians who argue for an end to the fighting. Social-media accounts calling for peace, including her own on Facebook, Instagram and X, have been blocked for users inside Ukraine at the request of Ukrainian authorities, she said. “Social media is the only way actually to talk about peace,” Mendel told Carlson. She appealed to Meta and X not to honor such requests.
Mendel presented herself as a Ukrainian patriot who has criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin and described his actions as crimes against humanity. She said she is not pro-Russian.
Continuing the war of attrition, she argued, is “suicidal” given the disparity in manpower: Ukraine has at most about 4 million men of conscription age against 38–42 million in Russia.
She cited a Polish prime minister’s claim that Ukrainian officials told him the country is losing 27,000 soldiers killed or wounded each month, plus about 3,000 civilians according to UN figures.
”Last year, we had three times more deaths than births. This year, in the first half of this year, we had four times more deaths than births.”
She said forced mobilization has produced widespread evasion through bribes she estimated at up to $5 billion a year, as well as reports of beatings and deaths in conscription offices.
Only 2–3 percent of those seized on the street actually reach the front, according to data she cited. Many men stay indoors for months or years to avoid being grabbed.
Mendel:
”All others pay bribes. We counted, and the conservative only count of the bribes that exist in the sector of forced mobilization to avoid frontline can reach up to five billion dollars annually. This is enormous corruption, and this is so enormous corruption that we understand that it is covered from the top.”
NewsVoice interviewed a Ukrainian man who witnessed how conscripts were drafted and had to pay to avoid the frontline: We Have to Pay for Weapons and Ammunition in the War Against Russia
Drafting women, she added, is deeply unpopular and could provoke unrest.
”And let me say you that many people who support Ukraine, they think that if Ukraine continues this war, we will stay independent and preserve our sovereignty. But this is very much vice versa because we are following now Afghanistan path. And if this war continues, we have many more chances to become a vassal state and actually to have enormous degradation of society, economy, and everything…”
Zelensky has remained in office for seven and a half years without a presidential election, Mendel said. She claimed he considered holding a vote earlier in 2026 but wanted a controlled process in which potential rivals would stand aside; at least one declined.
She said he would lose a free election and now cites refugees, frontline soldiers and shelling as reasons elections cannot be held. Ending the war, in her view, would be “political suicide” for him because it would remove the power, money and international profile the conflict has given him.
Mendel:
”And I need to tell you that our interview really opened a lot of things for Ukrainians. I got a lot of thanks. A lot of bloggers started talking more about what they, they see around, about the necessity to stop the war. I got a lot of thanks. They said, ”Thank you, Yulia, for your interview to Tucker Carlson. You opened our eyes.” So I’m sitting here understanding that you are one of a few platforms where Ukrainians can scream about the necessity of peace just to preserve ourselves, ourselves as a nation, as a country, as independent state.”
Mendel alleged large-scale corruption around defense contracts, including a company called Firepoint linked to a longtime Zelensky business associate. She said anti-corruption wiretaps published after her first Carlson interview showed discussions of billions of euros flowing to the firm.
The former press secretary for Zelensky, Yulia Mendel, has become Ukraine’s and Europe’s leading spokesperson for peace with Russia.
She also pointed to reports that Zelensky’s former chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, faces money-laundering accusations tied to luxury mansions in the Kyiv region, one of which is associated with a person nicknamed “Vova.” Construction on some properties resumed in March 2022 after the full-scale invasion began, she said.
Western military aid, she argued, largely stays in European defense industries rather than reaching ordinary Ukrainians. She said warehouses, energy infrastructure and gas stations have been heavily damaged, raising the prospect of a winter humanitarian crisis and more refugees.
A recent Gallup poll she cited found 66 percent of Ukrainians want peace as soon as possible. Each delay, she said, produces worse territorial and demographic outcomes: Ukraine’s population has fallen from 52 million in 1991 to a little more than 20 million remaining in the country, with deaths far outpacing births.
”She [von der Leyen] decided to have a speech in the European Parliament too, and she invited a Ukrainian girl, ten-year-old girl who lost her limb due to Russian shelling. She’s a dancer, and she continues dancing. And Ursula von der Leyen showed this girl and made PR on her, and with this girl, she justified the necessity to continue the war. In Ukraine, it caused a lot of outrage because I look at this girl, and this is the difference of perspective. I look at her and I beg to stop this war, that Ukrainian children don’t lose their limbs…”
Mendel said Zelensky keeps changing and maximizing peace terms because he does not want a settlement. Attacks on Russian energy infrastructure and other targets, she claimed, generate video and funding for drone producers such as Firepoint rather than protecting Ukrainian civilians, 93 percent of whose shelters she said cannot defend them.
”I feel like he [Zelensky] stands only for his own personal interests. Recently I was talking to one person who has known him for tens of years. He is very close. And the guy said that he recognizes that Zelensky preserves himself, sacrificing thousands of lives of Ukrainians. That’s why the hatred towards Zelensky is so huge in the country.”
Carlson asked why the United States, which supplies targeting intelligence, does not press for elections or a change in leadership. Mendel declined to speak for the Trump administration but said Zelensky had persuaded Western partners to escalate, worsening Ukraine’s position on the ground.
She urged Western governments and journalists to stop treating calls for an immediate ceasefire or peace talks as Russian propaganda.“Peace cannot be pro-Russian,” she said. “If we want to preserve Ukraine, the Ukrainian nation, we need to think about realistic ways to stop this war.”
Source: Zelensky’s Press Secretary Reveals All: Blood Money, Wire Taps & Dodging the Draft to Draft Women – Tucker Carlson Show
Related: Yulia Mendel: They Tried To Ban My Speech – I Gave It Anyway