The majority of Ukranians, like Russians, are East Slavic. They are cousins. How did Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who is Jewish, become the president of Ukraine in the first place?
Zelenskyy, a former entertainer (he had a degree in law, though), has been President of Ukraine since 2019. Positioning himself as an anti-establishment and anti-corruption figure in a post-Soviet, politically directionless world, he easily beat incumbent Petro Poroshenko with a landslide win of some 73% of the vote in the second round. Zelenskyy's term was supposed to end in May 2024, but the ongoing war has put paid to that timeline.
He was Joe Biden’s blue-eyed boy and hailed by the West as their bulwark against Russia’s grand design ambition on Europe. During the last US presidential election, he was foolish enough to openly endorse Biden and hence courted the wrath of Donald Trump. With Trump re-entering the White House, his days would surely be numbered.
True enough, the West’s hero was summoned to the White House on 28 February, supposedly to conclude a “deal” with Trump on Ukraine’s mineral resources, Zelenskyy was instead humiliated by Trump and his Vice President JD Vance in front of the whole world. Anyone who has any 志气 zhì qì (a melting pot of resolve, backbone and pride) would have stormed out of the room. He hanged on and was later ignominiously ushered out.
I am no fan of Zelenskyy, but I felt sad for him.
I have said enough of Trump’s obnoxiousness and do not want to again waste time bashing him here. But I could not help recalling the above scene, which happened in September 2020. I am sure this is one of the images that has remained in many people’s minds – President Aleksandar Vučić of Serbia made to behave like a schoolboy in front of a fearsome headmaster!
Today Trump 2.0 is behaviourally not different from Trump 1.0. Maybe worse.
Although the “deal” has yet to be concluded, it will certainly mean much of Ukraine’s mineral rights will go to the US – as a repayment for the billions the US has spent on Ukraine in its proxy war against Russia.
I thought the US was doing out of altruism? The Russians are winning in the battlefields. Putin may allow Trump to broker an end to the war – so that he can look great to the American eyes – but he is not going to give an inch to Zelenskyy. And as it is, European leaders like France’s Emmanuel Macron and UK’s Keir Starmer are still goading Zelenskyy to fight on. But without the support of the US, Ukraine will surely lose the war.
What is left after the war for Ukraine? Zelenskyy has to flee the country, if he has not been liquidated by then. Putin will never allow Ukraine to join NATO, which was precisely the ambition of Zelenskyy that triggered Russia to invade Ukraine in the first place. Ukraine will be a country where much has been destroyed. Few able-bodied are left to rebuild the country. Without a Father Christmas, it will remain in a very pathetic state for many years to come.
People in the former client states of Soviet Union like those in the Baltics, Poland, and those in the Balkans do have good reasons to hate Russia, but the Ukrainians? I beg your pardon! They were as guilty as the Russians!
Ukrainians and Russians were equal partners in the Soviet Union era! (That was also the reason Russia was happy to place the Crimea under Ukraine, even though the Black Sea is so strategic to the former.)
Now the US is deserting Zelenskyy, Europe can never fill the void. The European leaders can shout until their throats run dry. But they will never dare to start a war with Russia themselves.
It is time for Zelenskyy to admit complete defeat and quit. He has to disappear, though; notwithstanding, it is still not too late for him to save Ukraine to some degree.
Apparently, someone significant in Ukraine has already called Putin. Hopefully, this man is prestigious for him to be accepted by the Ukrainians and wise enough to bring Ukranians to believe that they have to do everything to reconcile with a powerful neighbour. After all, they are estranged cousins; all they need is a good 鲁仲连 Lǔ Zhòng-lián[1], and that can be Wang Yi of China!
I am not at all sure whether Ukraine is obliged to repay all the monies that the US and its supporters in Europe and elsewhere have spent on their war against Russia. But why should pay?
I doubt the claims about Ukraine’s abundance in rare earths are for real. But the Ukrainians are as smart as the Russians. They can work together to rebuild the country. And China and the rest of the rational world can always chip in. The type of democracy that is being practised by the Americans and Europeans are only good for window-dressing.
End
[1]
A
historical character in Chinese history’s Warring States period 戰國 (5th cent-221 BCE), said to be a highly effective in
bringing warring parties to come to terms.
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ReplyDeleteSo was said Trump has a personal gripe behind every action he takes. He went campaigning for his first presidency after Obama made a swipe at him at some press club. While not sure how Sheinbaum of Mexico could have affronted him except for having a higher IQ, Trudeau of Canada did proffer too manly a welcome towards his Melania. Thus the hint at making Canada the 51st state but that will mean all the US flags will have to be remade, a juicy contract indeed awaiting the seamstresses of Guangzhou. Next, hard as it may be, one must however leave out France's Macron, and thus his Brigitte; nothing to ponder there as part of the foibles of transatlantic relations.
But Ukraine? Could it be because Trump in his runup to his first presidency had asked Zelenskyy to table evidence of impropiety by Hunter Biden on the board of Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company? Zelenskyy refused and so Trump seethed under the specter of impeachment until he could exact revenge years later in the recent public press ambush in the Oval office whose carpet must already be drenched in the bile of Ishiba, Modi, Macron, Starmer and too many others making a beeline to Herr McKinley, rebooted.
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ReplyDeleteThe problems of Ukraine were seeded much earlier in 2014; agreements with Russia not to press for Nato membership was ignored to the increasing consternation of Moscow. Victoria Nuland of the US State dept had stewarded the destabilisation of the pro-Russian Kyiv government with view to subsequent militarisation of Ukraine on the back of a maidan revolution; in fact she was youtubed laughing how clear was the recording of her dismissive remarks.
A pro-western history media will undoubtedly bury all this with the bravura of a Musk salute by saying Russia invaded a sovereign state, period. But why? Could it conceivably be because Putin wants to avoid a nuclear exchange with a Natofied and thus like Poland, a nuclearisable Ukraine in which case those US nukes could be fired by proxy at Ukraine's eastern border with only 5 minutes response time by Moscow? If that ensues, the casualty rate on the continent will be more than the 30 million which Stalin had sacrificed in defence of old Russia against the might of the Wehrmacht, elements of which revived by Zelenskyy's Kyiv in Ukraine's Donbass, now Moscow's territory.
It was only the incompetence of Shoigu's Russian forces and MI6's infiltration of Moscow's GRU well ahead of the special operations which explains how Russia could have fumbled. Men and material as well as the subsequent seizure of Russia's foreign reserves and sanctions writ large is weakening the country's economy said to be a petrol station at best but with China buying less fuel, having come into her own new deposits.
A Russia so destabilized will not look kindly on a post-ceasefire Ukraine unless sanctions against it are removed and its foreign reserves amounting to USD300 Billion are returned, with interest. Macron and Starmer and Bundestag elements have already unwisely clamored they be used for Ukrainian reconstruction. This is recipe for future ignition of a second conflict in much the same way may be said of WW1 - nobody wanted it yet all the parties somehow got together and saw it started.
But WW1 was with trench, tanks and mustard gas. WW3 will be with multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles subset small-pack drone nukes. And it will start in a horrific quasi-comedy just because an EC lawyer had added Article 5 into the Nato constitution, to wit any attack on a Nato member will be taken as an attack on all Nato members. This implies the combination of responses to a nuclear strike will be exponential by the number of countries involved.
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ReplyDeleteThat should be the last-analysis scenario from which all parties should work backwards to what needs to be done quickly in the coming weeks. The number of permutations leading to a nuclear outbreak must mean the breakdown of the MAD strategy of peace by threat of mutual destruction.
Russia is not going anywhere. And its economic destabilization must be prevented despite the easy western reasoning that an economically strong Russia will only mean its military rejuvenation. Germany's Merz should adopt AfD's idea to restart Nordstream-2 with Russia. That will in fact save Germany's industrial base which is being wiped out by US fuel prices.
With Merz, Macron can centralize strategic autonomy of Europe with military rearmament and industrial-economic cooperation with China, Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asia. Switzerland can establish a special currency swap mechanism with China and other BRICs to facilitate the new networking. Britain, Germany, Netherlands, France and Italy can open more visa-free seats for tertiary education and research with China. There are many other suggestions but as Fermat would say, this comment box is too small to list them all.
As for Ukraine, its smarts can be nomadic like the diaspora of China until the country recovers by progressive reconstruction which will take at least 10 years. Zelenskyy was right that Biden had offered the aid as grant which means gratis, not some lend-lease that Trump has in mind. So the US has no claim to any minerals or inflated sums; if Ukraine is to achieve normalcy, so too the other countries in Europe which have helped it must exercise clemency towards both Ukraine and Russia. After all, it is understood some of the funds had been siphoned elsewhere.
It remains to say one must however not forget the reconstruction of Gaza, something Middle Eastern funders must direct but will their leaders in this month of the Ramadan? And at the rate Hegseth is going to bomb the Houthis, Yemen will also need reconstruction soon.
Lastly, Zelenskyy should resign and book the next flight out to Miami where it is understood he has a number of properties. He should bury the hope that Starmer and Macron or anyone else putting boots in Ukraine whether as peacekeeper or troops will matter one iota; they won't against Russia's hypersonics and thus will lose more, like conflare the whole continent.
And like Albright, Nuland will wither into the background. So many innocent young lives lost for nothing save the duplicity of warmongers.