Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy may feel he had greatness thrust upon him as the saying goes. At least this is what he most likely thought at first, in the first flush of his electoral victory over the then president, Poroshenko. Earlier than this he had been picked out by his sponsor for future ‘greatness’ by Ukrainian oligarch and billionaire, Ihor Kolomoiskyy who ran the TV channel that featured the series that brought Zelenskyy the fame required to elevate him to the presidency. Ironically, Kolomoiskyy who masterminded Zelenskyy’s rise to become not only Ukraine’s favourite but also that of the western political elite, has been banned from entry to the USA along with all members of his family.
Zelenskyy has not had an easy ride as president. Having been elected on the back of the TV series where he played the part of an anti-corruption president of Ukraine, ‘Servant of the People’ along with a promise to end the fighting in the Donbass region of south-eastern Ukraine and patch things up with Russia, he soon found that delivering on his words was to be impossible. A confrontation with the most extreme of Ukrainian’s Nazi-mentality militia’s in the Donbass on a visit there soon after his election as president was one indication among what were surely many that Zelenskyy would never be allowed to realise his electioneering goals there. There can be little doubt that he was warned that if he tried to do so he and his family would not be long for this earth.
So it was that Zelenskyy made an about turn in regard to all his fine words concerning peace and reconciliation with Russia and greater rights for the Russian-speaking majority in the Donbass. Instead of being the peacemaker he would opt for being a warmonger. This is when he began wearing a pseudo-military uniform and growing his supposedly manly-looking beard. That particular pose he has continued to adopt from that time to this. In coordination with Merkel of Germany and Hollande of France he began to engage in the successful duping of Russia during the meetings which discussed and purportedly sought to have implemented the Minsk accords.
The Minsk accords were mean to iron ought a path toward peace and reconciliation between those who had assumed the leadership of the two new republics in the Donbass that had arisen in response to the violent takeover of power which had occurred in Kiev in 2014. These efforts continued all the way from 2015 to 2022 with Russia seeking to see the accords implemented which would solve the outstanding issues between both sides. The goal was to bring about a situation whereby the two republics would remain within the Ukrainian nation but with enhanced self-determination. To all intents and purposes Russia appears to have been sincere in attempting to bring this outcome about. The seven year effort to do this however had not achieved the success sought for.
Apparently completely unknown to the Russian side Merkel and Hollande, along with Zelenskyy and Poroshenko before him, had never had any intention of bringing the Minsk accord goals about. As has been now admitted by both Merkel and Poroshenko, the true goal which they adhered to throughout was to give the Ukrainians the time to build up their armed forces and military defences. During the years 2015 to 2022 everything possible appears to have been done to effect these goals, including significant input by NATO officials and forces. For example, Ukrainian forces began training alongside NATO troops and these coordinated events were most certainly only the tip of the iceberg.
During the years 2015 to 2022 a constant daily barrage of mortar shells and missiles were directed by the Ukrainian army to the Donetsk and Lugansk regions of the Donbass. Between those years approximately 15,000 deaths occurred, most of them (by OSCE records) having occurred as a result of the Ukrainian army bombardment. Despite the existence of short periods of ceasefire these attacks continued right through the period of the Minsk accord talks with no apparent effort by the United Nations, OSCE or Zelenskyy to halt the bombardment in light of these talks.
During the latter part of the era of Minsk accord talks Zelenskyy began talking of restoring Ukraine’s nuclear status along with a steady increase in his anti-Russian rhetoric. Meanwhile, toward the end of 2021 and into the first two months of 2022 the OSCE registered a significant rise in the level of shelling by Ukrainian forces of the two republics. In addition, it was announced by the Russian authorities that Ukrainian plans for a major attack upon the two republics had been found. It was in this period that the two republics formally asked the Russian Federation for assistance and, on the 21st of February 2022, Russia recognised the DPR and LPR as sovereign states. Three days later Russia’s ‘Special Military Operation’ was launched to bring pressure on the Ukrainian authorities to finally bring into effect the goals of the Minsk accords.
Russian troops entered Ukraine in a number of locations, including a force that rapidly formed near to the Ukrainian capital. It was within weeks of this that Russia called on the Ukrainian authorities to engage in negotiations to come to a peace settlement.
‘The first meeting was held four days after the start of the invasion, on 28 February 2022, in Belarus. It concluded without result, with delegations from both sides returning to their capitals for consultations. A second and third round of talks took place on 3] and 7 March 2022, on the Belarus–Ukraine border, in an undisclosed location in the Gomel region of Belarus. A fourth and fifth round of talks were respectively held on 10 and 14 March in Antalya, Turkey.’ (Wikipedia)
‘Peace talks and the stability of international borders were further discussed in the Ukrainian parliament during the week of 9 May. Following the 2022 Ukrainian eastern counteroffensive, Russia renewed calls for peace talks. Ukrainian leaders refused to reopen dialogue…’ (Wikipedia)
In the final round of peace talks in Istanbul it appears that major progress was made with both sides making compromises. Work remained to be done but it is now clear from statements made by both sides that most major issues had been resolved. Russia’s main insistence was that Ukraine would never join NATO. Along with this Russia required special status, delivering a degree of autonomy, be granted to both Donetsk and Lugansk republics. In addition there was to be demilitarisation and denazification of Ukraine.
In April 2022 Boris Johnson arrived in Kiev for talks with Zelenskyy that brought any hope of a peace agreement to an end.
‘Top Ukrainian politician and presidential advisor David Arakhamia added a seventh confirmation that a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine was agreed in principle in March 2022 that was later shot down by UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
The parliamentary leader of Zelenskiy's ''Servant of the People'' confirmed on November 24 in an interview that internationally mediated negotiations in Istanbul had produced an agreement to bring the fighting in Ukraine to an end.
“[The Russians] were ready to end the war if we accepted neutrality like Finland once did. And we would make a commitment that we would not join Nato. When we returned from Istanbul Boris Johnson came to Kyiv and said: “We will not sign anything with them at all and let’s just go to war,” Arakhamia said.’
Since all formal negotiations between the two sides ended in those early months of 2022 they have not resumed. Western spokespersons have stated that the conditions have not been right for such talks and that this would remain the case until Ukraine had achieved successes on the battlefield that would guarantee a better bargaining position at such talks. In the period between April 2022 and Boris Johnson’s intervention and now we have had the failed Ukrainian offensive of June 2023 which has only very recently been acknowledged as a failure by Zelenskyy. Russia has continued to make incremental gains and Ukrainian military losses have continued to be high in a range between 400 and 800 casualties per day.
In spite of the ever darkening outlook for Ukraine Zelenskyy has continued in unrelenting style to call for ever more war and has shown no sign whatsoever that he favours any restarting of peace negotiations. Currently, as of Tuesday December 5th he is on yet another visit to the USA to seek further funding for Ukraine’s armed forces in respect of weaponry for both offence and defence. On the 6th of December there will be a vote in the U.S. Senate on whether yet another tranche of financial aid will be given Ukraine and how many billions of dollars it will constitute.
With Ukraine clearly losing this conflict, becoming ever weaker while Russia becomes stronger (Ukraine has lost most of its professional military and is increasingly relying on partially trained younger, older and female conscripts and has immense problems maintaining enough munitions for its weaponry while Russia has thousands of volunteers joining its forces each month and has expanded its munitions and weaponry deliveries several times over) the levels of attrition being felt by Ukraine can only increase. There must surely come a point, even with another tranche of finance from the USA, that it becomes clear that Russia will not be defeated and that its demands MUST be met. At this point we are likely to see a terminally weakened Ukraine and Zelenskyy.
Will the leaders of the Ukrainian armed forces make the final decision regarding capitulation or will it be Zelenskyy. The most likely outcome is the former given the absolute reluctance at any point for Zelensky to advocate accommodation of Russian demands. If the high command of the Ukrainian army do bow to the realities of their situation and signal they can no longer be responsible for ever more casualties among the ranks of their troops what is Zelenskyy’s reaction likely to be?
If the track record of Zelenskyy since he switched from peacemaker to warmonger soon after taking on the presidency is anything to go by Zelenskyy will continue in the same vein even after the capitulation of the Ukrainian army, at least in terms of rhetoric. Like Hitler during WWII he will likely take this down to the wire, perhaps not quite as a far as Hitler but almost. His greatest fear is almost certainly from his own side, from the Nazi-mentality extremists such as those in the AZOV regiment ranks. The suspicion must be that he will continue to appear to be doing something to turn things around right to the final collapse of the Ukrainian armed forces. At that point he will likely continue to hope he can escape with his reputation for doing everything possible intact. He will hold onto the hope that the ultra-extremists of AZOV will spare him due to his taking it all the way down to the bitter end while still talking up victory and demanding that his forces continue fighting.
With fighting finally coming to a halt after the capitulation of the Ukrainian armed forces we will likely see Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy quietly disappear from the scene, removed by one means or another from public gaze. It is almost certain that he will receive assistance in this regard from the U.S. state department/U.S. intelligence services. All that will be left thereafter will be for Russia’s initial terms stretching back to the Minsk accords to be agreed along with new requirements as a result of territory taken in the interim. Western mainstream media will report in increasingly muted terms on all aspects of Ukraine just as it has regarding Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria in recent times. The long process of establishing a liveable existence across all areas involved in the near decade-long conflict will then begin.
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