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The last few days have been a hellride for Ukraine’s caretaker President as he starts to grasps some harsh realities. Zelensky doesn’t have much time left as President now that the Donald is in office. He had warnings but failed to see them. In early October of last year he visited the U.S. and met briefly with Trump. Readers will remember how I predicted that it would be him – Zelensky himself – who would soon be seen to be part of the problem, rather than the solution, if he didn’t play ball with Trump. I predicted that it would only be a question of time before Zelensky would be framed as the chief culprit holding back a peace deal, and so therefore would have to go.
At the meeting back in October, the body language looked really bad as they both awkwardly faced the cameras and Trump muttered something about ‘taking two to tango’ hinting even then that Zelensky’s position was unreasonable.
It didn’t take long.
After a few days of firstly resisting Trump’s offer involving Ukraine’s mineral reserves, which was followed by a flat refusal to accept any outcome of Russia and U.S. making a deal, it was as though the former comedian was briefly living in a haze of delusion and comedy. He was literally trying to dig himself out of a hole and before long, his head was no longer visible. Just read the first two lines of a tweet by Trump.
“Think of it, a modestly successful comedian, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, talked the United States of America into spending $350 Billion Dollars, to go into a War that couldn’t be won, that never had to start, but a War that he, without the U.S. and “TRUMP,” will never be able to settle. The United States has spent $200 Billion Dollars more than Europe, and Europe’s money is guaranteed, while the United States will get nothing back”.
The leaked minutes of the first talk between Trump and Putin were very short but clear. Ceasefire first, then elections for a new president, then peace deal.
Clearly no deal can be made with Zelensky in office as both an illegitimate president and secondly as someone who can only see 300 billion dollars given to him as the solution in his latest childish rant. The quickest, simplest solution to advance peace in Ukraine is to accept now that Russia is the victor and the one party who gets the spoils of war. Every war ends like this. Trump forcing presidential elections in Ukraine seems a fatuous, if not obvious move. But it was actually genius as it gives the vote to the masses if they want to continue with war, or start to rebuild their country. Most will certainly vote for a new U.S.-friendly candidate, who Russia can work with, who will play the role which is required of him. No NATO aspirations at all, present boundaries stay as they are and something done about Nazi brigades. Add to that an audit which will reveal that at least half of all the aid and military equipment given to Ukraine was embezzled and sold, which has to be accounted for and paid back to the U.S. It will mean that Ukraine is and will remain a poor country for at least one generation as it will be in so much debt that it won’t be able to have any ambitions, regionally. It will literally be a basket case economy dependent on EU aid for a few generations to come with no hopes of either EU/NATO membership.
Of course, it didn’t need to be this way. But delusional viewpoints of both Zelensky and the EU have brought us to this. For him to even fight his corner and believe that he has any edge at all in these negotiations is laughable – and a point which Trump wants to demonstrate. Even the EU itself doesn’t believe it can stand up and face Russia and America, and whimpers in the corner sulking like a puppy which has just been kicked by its new owner. All the EU can do after its pathetic Paris emergency meeting is agree to a new level of sanctions against Russia. Putin must be laughing so hard his sides must be hurting. The next circus now to watch is the implosion of Zelensky and his infrastructure and of course the exposure of the racket which he has been at the centre of since the war started. Even those who support him will have to accept that he made poor choices and a number of critical errors which have led to this, namely the Istanbul deal which he rejected after Boris Johnson’s intervention but also just the sheer scale of the embezzlement and money laundering. How do you fight mighty Russia when at least half of the military kit that the west is sending you gets sent to Libya to be resold? How do you keep a functioning state when the same percentage is funnelled away and kept for yourself and your cabal? This is what Ukrainians are going to wake up to in the coming weeks when the lid is lifted on all this graft. Zelensky had his last chance back in October and he blew it. It is now time for a new President to be installed just as easily as he was and Poroshenko before him, but this time it will be Trump and Putin who ensure that the new leader keeps his word on peace and doesn’t become a billionaire several times over. Trump’s tweet, in a nutshell, was “you’re fired”.
