IT IS ANYTHING BUT FUNNY WHAT ZELENSKY HAS BEEN DOING IN UKRAINE

The star of a comedy hit series on Ukrainian TV, ‘Servant of the People’ turned Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy from being a mere comedian into a Ukrainian president.

But a close examination of his presidential rule since the campaign trail when he offered, peace, happiness and economic success to the people of Ukraine, reveals a trail of dictatorial conduct that has been very far from funny.

‘Zelensky greenlighted sanctions slapped on three TV channels and their owner, member of Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada Taras Kozak. These measures envisage annulling or suspending licenses as well as banning the use of Ukrainian TV and radio frequencies. Their assets will be blocked, and their economic and financial liabilities will be frozen. The management will not be allowed to transfer financial assets to foreign countries, engage in transactions with securities and open accounts in foreign banks.’

‘As bad as the situation was under Poroshenko, however, it has grown even worse under his successor, Zelensky. In early February 2021, the Ukrainian government closed several pro‐​Russia, independent media outlets, and did so on the basis of utterly vague, open‐​ended standards. On May 13, 2021, a Ukrainian court ordered prominent pro‐​Russian politician Viktor Medvedchuk, a political ally of the owner of those television stations, to be put under house arrest while he faced allegations of treason. Medvedchuk, leader of the Opposition Platform — For Life political party, is one of Zelensky’s most outspoken critics.’

Apart from the above Zelensky has moved Ukraine away from peace and toward war only a year or so into his presidency. This is when he began assuming the mantle of warrior rather than peacemaker, claiming he would take back Crimea and even suggesting Ukraine get back its status as a nuclear power.

In the most recent talks under the auspices of the Normandy Four arrangement that lasted for a full nine hours the Ukrainian delegation ended by refusing to even talk of Ukraine’s two commitments to talk directly to the leaders of the two republics in eastern Ukraine and to pass a law providing the region they are in a special status granting a high degree of autonomy, the two most vital commitments in what is known as the Minsk Agreements or Accords.

Zelensky has presided over a massive rearmament of Ukraine, the training of Ukrainian troops alongside those of NATO and of sending massive amounts of troops and military materiel east in close proximity to the autonomy-seeking republics. His rhetoric, once emphasising agreement and peace-making has become ever more strident and confrontational.

Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin has continued to put some faith in the Ukrainian authorities finally making good on their Minsk promises, something Ukraine’s western backers never urged it to do, instead putting pressure solely on Russia.

With the accumulation of all the factors mentioned above that indicated Ukraine was moving toward a military and no longer a diplomatic solution to resolve the question of the republics and intelligence received that this was indeed imminent, Putin gave the go ahead for the present operation.

Not only had Zelensky provided little to smile at for the Russian people he has only brought disaster down upon those of Ukraine also. For a comedian come president there is nothing whatsoever to find comic in anything at all that he has done since becoming president of Ukraine. Quite the opposite, he has arranged a tragedy instead.