In Ukraine’s short life as a sovereign, democratic country, this is certainly its darkest hour. As the war effort falters and the West dodges and procrastinates, the past few days have seen the nadir of Ukraine's fortunes.
The week began with the Ukrainian president returning nearly empty-handed from Washington and ended with the European Union also delaying assistance, although he agreed to begin accession negotiations with Ukraine.
For Vladimir Zelensky, a fearless tribune of a proud nation doomed by geography and history to be besieged by a borderland, there will be no Merry Christmas. Moving from pillar to post in search of money and military equipment, he openly wonders when his allies will finally take the plight of his people seriously.
Since that first day of the Russian attack, when he was pursued on the streets of Kiev death squads, Zelensky’s response to the US proposal to send him into exile resonated: “The fight is already here; I need ammo, not a ride.”
Nearly two years later, the fight is still at least partly over ammunition. This week, the Russians threw everything they had left, including expensive hypersonic Kinzhal missiles, at Kyiv, Odessa and other cities.
Ukrainian air defenses are running low, and the U.S. Congress and European Union are running out of ammunition. While Washington and Brussels are busy, Kyiv is burning.
The modesty and cowardice of the West are costing Ukrainians their lives. If the Russians manage to exhaust Kiev's defensive arsenal, the precious US-supplied Patriot missile batteries, of which there are only two, will themselves become easy prey.
The Fate of a Nation
Ukraine and Zelensky are so closely linked in the eyes of the world as indistinguishable. Rarely in the annals of war has the fate of a nation rested so heavily on the shoulders of one man.
Zelensky faced a different atmosphere from last year, in its mission to provide more assistance. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Over the past few days, Zelensky has crossed the Atlantic to confront his enemies and plead with his friends to unblock stalled military funding. The Congress flew back to Oslo to rally the Nordic countries and then turned to the EU.
As Kyiv and Odessa echoed with rocket and drone explosions and the Russians celebrated his trip to Washington by bombing a children's hospital, the Ukrainian president did his best to persuade House Republicans to commit $61 billion in desperately needed military aid. /p>
In America, his efforts have so far been in vain, except for the relatively modest Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, costing just $300 million. A year ago, Zelensky, in a state of flattery and euphoria, spoke before both houses of Congress, confident of support against Putin’s aggression.
Last time his prayers were answered. This time it was a completely different atmosphere. After a difficult meeting with Speaker Mike Johnson and other Republicans, he was forced to leave Washington without firm promises.
“I cannot imagine how bleak the path home might be for [Zelensky],” the influential American wrote. strategist Mike Ryan. Yes, perhaps, but there was no hint of despondency in his words or body language.
Arriving in Oslo, Zelensky struck a defiant note instead. Ukraine will continue to fight with or without help, he told the press, just as it did during the Russian invasion almost two years ago: “In the early days… we were really alone. But we didn’t run away, we started fighting.”
It wasn't just bravado. With his signature mixture of irony and pathos, Zelensky added: “Of course, you can’t win without outside help, but you can’t lose either, because that’s the only thing you have — your country.”
Progress in Brussels, where Viktor Orban blocked a €50 billion aid package but did not veto accession talks, does not make up for the failure in Washington. While EU membership is his long-term goal, it is purely symbolic while the fighting rages.
The failure of the Ukrainian counteroffensive to break through to the sea and end the war this year did not surprise military experts. , but the president's bullish optimism led to disappointment at home and abroad. One adviser, who did not want to be named, says he is a «messianic» and «misguided.» “We are not winning. But try telling him about it.”
In wartime conditions, Zelensky accumulated rivals and enemies, including those whose loyalty he could count on.
His loudest internal critic is Mayor of Kiev Vitaliy Klitschko. The former world heavyweight boxing champion has made no secret of his desire to replace the president, whom he considers authoritarian and incompetent.
Complaining that he has not met Zelensky since the start of the war, despite having almost adjacent offices, Klitschko places the blame for Ukraine's predicament squarely on the president: “People see who is effective and who is not. And there were and still are a lot of expectations. Zelensky is paying for the mistakes he made.”
Klitschko argues that Zelensky is to blame for Ukraine being surprised by the invasion: “People are wondering why we were not better prepared for this war, why Zelensky denied until the end that it would come to this.”
Klitschko knows he is playing a dangerous blame game. Although Zelensky's popularity has been dented by heavy losses and war fatigue, he is determined to lead Ukraine to victory. A political crisis in the midst of hostilities would be defeatist and demoralizing, and perhaps catastrophic.
Even Klitschko admits this. But the mayor is determined to undermine the authority of a leader whose acting and comic background he disparages and whose international reputation he envies.
But would the former boxer really be a more suitable opponent for Putin? Klitschko is a supporter of former President Poroshenko, whom Zelensky removed from office, and is responsible for Ukraine's notorious corruption.
The Enemy Within
A more serious criticism of Zelensky comes from the other side: the army. Commander-in-Chief General Valery Zaluzhny warned last month that his troops were bogged down and “most likely there will not be a deep and beautiful breakthrough.”
“As during the First World War, we have reached a level of technological development that baffles us,” he added. Calling for the use of a new air force to break the impasse, Zaluzhny hinted that Zelensky's optimism was merely wishful thinking and that his efforts to attract support abroad were insufficient.
The president was quick to rebut his commander's assessment of the war, saying that «people are tired, but this is not a stalemate.» The assistant reproached Zaluzhny for “making the aggressor’s job easier.” Zelensky was angry that the general made his comments in an interview with The Economist — where they would do maximum damage to his own campaign to win over Western public opinion.
The Ukrainian military, however, is unlikely to pose a threat. towards democracy, both because it is a conscript army of citizens in uniform and because it considers itself a bulwark of Europe against despotic regimes in the East.
Zaluzhny criticized Zelensky’s military strategy. Photo: press service of the President of Ukraine
Whatever tensions exist between the political and military authorities in Ukraine — and such tensions have arisen sooner or later in every protracted conflict known in history — there is no reason to fear that Zelensky could be overthrown as a result coup d'etat.
<р>Such military coups usually occur only after victory or defeat. The initial coup of the 18th Brumaire, which resulted in Napoleon Bonaparte becoming First Consul and eventually Emperor, occurred only because his stunning victories contrasted with the lethargy of the civil Directory.
In the case of the Ukraine, the army won. fought well enough to guarantee national survival, but Zaluzhny — although currently more popular than Zelensky — is definitely not Napoleon.
On the contrary: it is Zelensky who still remains the real hero of our days. His charisma is confirmed by everyone who meets him, as is his dedication to those who have done right by Ukraine. When Boris Johnson was defenestrated by his colleagues, he could still count on his friend in Kyiv.
This is a man who still sees himself not as a politician, but as “simply coming to break the system.” Those who accuse Zelensky of authoritarian tendencies should remember why he requires emergency powers. After all, he must lead a nation fighting for its existence against forces that have suppressed its identity and starved its citizens for more than a century.
Ordinary Kiev residents are more sympathetic. Sasha Erickson, 20, says: “I still think Zelensky is doing a good job.”
Most blame the EU and the US rather than him for the delay in arms deliveries. “Come on, guys, help us,” says 48-year-old Natalya Yurchenko. “If our guys fall, this shit will come to you.”
Stalin’s legacy
The threats to Ukraine are not only external (in the form of Putin’s rapists, executioners and child kidnappers), but also internal: Stalin’s legacy still holds control the mentality of even those who were born long after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Zelensky's mission is to banish this nightmare forever.
How? “The president cannot change the country alone,” he tells them. “But what can he do? He can lead by example.» If this sounds paternalistic, that's because it is: Ukraine is a young country, and its people take inspiration from their young head of state — he is only 45 years old.
The contrast with his opponent Vladimir Putin is stark. . The Russian president has just announced that he intends to run for a fifth term in elections next March, although his only serious opponent, Alexei Navalny, has just “disappeared” from a penal colony and his supporters fear the worst.
If Putin serves another six-year term until 2030, he will break Stalin's record of 29 years in the Kremlin. But what separates him from the communist despot, to whom grotesque monuments began to multiply throughout Russia, is not only his longevity in office.
Of course, Putin is an awful lot like Stalin, having committed heinous acts of genocide, especially against Ukraine. However, he has just been feted by Arab emirs in the Persian Gulf, and he undoubtedly sees himself, like Stalin, as the leader of the rest of the world in the fight against the West.
Putin meets with Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in the UAE. Photo: SERGEY SAVOSTYANOV/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
Putin was born in 1952, when Stalin still ruled the USSR, and is in many ways a product of the Soviet era. Putin is a relic of the last century; Zelensky is an outstanding statesman to emerge today.
At his annual press conference on Thursday, Putin once again showed the face of the atavistic, unprincipled nihilist that he is.
He reaffirmed his war goals: the “denazification” and “demilitarization” of Ukraine; in other words, it is an unconditional surrender. But he also mockingly anticipated its betrayal by NATO: “Ukraine today produces almost nothing, everything comes from the West. But the free stuff will eventually run out, and it looks like it already has.”
However, Putin also said he now has 617,000 troops fighting in Ukraine — twice as many as he mobilized for the invasion. . He is completely indifferent to the losses suffered by his armies, estimated at more than 300 thousand people, not to mention the tens of thousands of civilian and military casualties they inflicted on Ukraine.
Putin still compulsively lies about his atrocities. He claimed that Odessa was a «Russian city» on the day he had just bombarded this cultural gem.
Foreign journalists were surprised to see that written questions from the public shown on screens at the press conference were mildly critical of the regime. One even asked Putin not to run for another term.
But the farce was a propaganda stunt designed to suggest that next spring's presidential elections would be free and fair. Therefore, no mention of Alexei Navalny or his whereabouts, and certainly no criticism of the war.
Under wartime emergency measures, Russia has become a country paralyzed by fear, where even a joke about the war or the president can mean prison. or worse.
Only dissident literature from Soviet times can do justice to this terror. Mikhail Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita reflects the paranoid atmosphere under Stalin, which now reigns under Putin.
When the heroine Margarita is approached by a stranger about “a small matter that concerns you,” she turns pale: “Have you come to arrest me?” The man responds with a question that has no answer: “Why is it enough to talk to a person for him to imagine that he will be arrested?”
Leadership model
As if inhabiting a different universe than Putin’s hellish empire, Zelensky presents the world transparently a frank and open leadership model that puts most of his Western counterparts to shame.
He shows us what leadership of what we used to call the free world might look like. While the man most likely to inherit this mantle is Donald Trump, who has just decided to make «dictator» his brand, it is an inspiring fact that a Jewish intellectual from a young democracy has outwitted the various thugs and megalomaniacs against which perform him.
Viktor Orban is another leader whom Zelensky is not afraid of. The Hungarian prime minister likes to call Ukraine “one of the most corrupt countries in the world,” cynically using it as a bargaining chip to extort money from the EU.
Last Sunday, Zelensky clashed with Orban in Buenos. Ayres at the inauguration of Javier Miley, the new President of Argentina. The video footage shows two men practically fighting in the corner of a crowded reception.
Zelensky demanded that Orban abandon his veto of the EU lifeline. An unstoppable force in combat uniform met a stationary, bull-necked object.
Zelensky then said the confrontation was “as frank as possible” and later accused Orbán of acting as a proxy for Putin. “I asked him to give me one reason, not three, five, ten, give me one reason” why accession negotiations should not begin. “Still waiting for an answer.”
Addressing EU leaders on Thursday, Zelensky appealed to their conscience with his familiar eloquence. Ukraine, according to him, has fulfilled all the conditions set by Brussels: “I ask you one thing — do not betray people and their faith in Europe. If no one believes in Europe, what will help the European Union survive?”
Zelensky equated the independence and even survival of Ukraine with the independence of the EU itself. To some of those present, not just Orbán, this must have seemed implausible.
For them, Zelensky wanted to say the following about the consequences of betrayal: “Putin will definitely use this against you personally and against all of Europe. Don’t give him this first – and only – victory of the year.”
Zelensky’s voice has been heard, but EU aid remains frozen. The truth is that EU leaders have run out of ideas. Divided over Ukraine and distracted by Gaza, they can't even agree on how to raise money.
European public opinion is generally supportive of Ukraine, according to a Eurobarometer poll. About 60% support the EU, offering both candidate status and military aid, and 72% approve of financial assistance.
But this support is broad rather than deep, and the picture changes when actual membership is at stake. A poll by the European Council on Foreign Relations shows that half of Danes want Ukraine to join the EU, but only 28% of Austrians do. Germany and France are evenly divided on membership, but most Germans fear a negative impact on security.
In the absence of British leadership, Europe is in a difficult situation. Joe Biden also failed to deliver on his promises. Donald Trump is waiting in the wings, ready to sell out the Ukrainians along the Dnieper River — and perhaps NATO too.
Ukraine's only hope
So, is it game over for Ukraine? Not if Zelensky has anything to do with it. He alone has still carried the torch of freedom, delivering nightly video messages since the beginning of the war. Now he is not going to give up.
In Kyiv, some believe his relentlessly optimistic statements have backfired. Public Relations Advisor Irina Zolotar warns against “rose-colored glasses.”
Zelensky is due to run for re-election in March next year, but presidential elections cannot take place under martial law. Voters also do not want elections in wartime.
Zelensky's rating, which rose to 90% after the invasion, has now fallen to 72%. But that's still the impressive level he reached in the 2019 election, when he came out of nowhere to defeat incumbent President Petro Poroshenko.
Even though he failed to break into the field, General Zaluzhny’s rating is now 82% – noticeably higher than the president’s. This may have given the commander-in-chief the courage to soften Zelensky’s optimistic narrative with talk of a military “deadlock.”
But the truth is that Zelensky's shuttle diplomacy is still Ukraine's only hope of getting the necessary tools to finish the job. Job. Zaluzhny has neither the talent nor the temperament for this.
The Ukrainian opposition would like to overthrow Zelensky or at least force him to include them in the coalition government. But his refusal to make concessions in exchange for peace remains popular.
Vladimir Fresenko of the Penta Center for Political Research in Kyiv says that while up to 30% of Ukrainians would support a peace deal, the “absolute majority” opposes any negotiations while Russia occupies parts of Ukraine, including Crimea. He believes that Zelensky will win any election in the first round.
Given that Zaluzhny has shown no signs of challenging him for the presidency, there is no real internal threat to Zelensky. Ukraine also does not need a change of leadership at this critical stage of the war.
What needs to change is the lack of attention from Western media. After the Israel-Hamas crisis broke out, a Ukrainian refugee girl told her teacher at a London primary school: “Now they have a shiny new war to talk about, and people here will forget all about the war in my country.
This child was not mistaken. But the situation in Ukraine has not changed. Just like its leader.
Zelensky is a man who does not know the meaning of defeat. Robert Browning's «Epilogue» perfectly reflects his worldview:
He who never turned his back, but walked forward with his chest,
Never doubted that the clouds would clear,
Never dreamed, although the right was defeated, and the wrong have triumphed,
We fall to rise, and we cannot fight better,
Sleep to wake.
The unique personality of Vladimir Zelensky, forged under fire, reinvented patriotism for our time. This is a little man in a military uniform who fights back against bullies.
Additional reporting by Joe Barnes from Kyiv.
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