Is Zelensky Making Impossible Demands to Scapegoat His Western Allies as ‘Traitors’ and Be Able To Negotiate With Russia Without Losing Face?

As it was widely expected, Volodymyr Zelensky’s trip to the US, while perhaps not a complete fiasco, was not nearly as successful as he had hoped for.

His ‘victory plan’ fell flat, was considered nothing but a unfeasible ‘wish list’.

His speech to the UN General Assembly was met by mostly empty seats and, as TGP has reported, he ended up having to beg for a meeting with Republican candidate Donald Trump.

The German magazine ‘Spiegel’ talks about the Ukrainian enduring ‘humiliation and horror’ in his US trip, and reported on Zelensky meeting with Trump.

The publication writes about the actor’s antics by displaying ‘horror on his face’ during his meeting with Trump.

The meeting with the Republican in New York, Spiegel says,  was ‘chilly’ and ‘clearly showed that there is no chemistry between the two men’.

“You could literally see the discomfort on Volodymyr Zelensky’s face as he stood in front of the cameras next to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in New York on Friday.”

Spiegel’s explanation for his theatrical grimace was the ‘discomfort’ with Trump’s statement that Putin wants a ‘fair deal’ and is ready to end the war with Ukraine, and for Trump saying that he has a ‘very good relationship’ with Putin.

But there is another more probable explanation: Zelensky put forward impossible demands in pursuit of the objective of presenting the West as a ‘traitor’ to Ukraine.

The British magazine The Spectator has an interesting article on this disconnect between Zelensky and his western allies – as well as inside Ukraine itself – about what a realistic ‘victory’ would mean for Ukraine.

“Zelensky insists that the bottom line of a Ukrainian victory remains ‘the occupation army [being] driven out by force or diplomatically, in such a way that the country preserves its true independence and is freed from occupation’. He has also rejected the idea of a ceasefire, saying that any ‘freezing of the war or any other manipulations… will simply postpone Russian aggression to a later stage’. Even as Russia continues to steadily advance in Donbas, Zelensky and his lieutenants are still talking about winning.”

Even the warmongers in Washington now focus on a consolidation of the front lines and on imminent peace talks.

They mean to give Kiev ‘a strong position on the battlefield so that they are in a strong position at the negotiating table’.

And most of the present aid is ‘designed to help repair Ukraine’s energy grid, provide food, shelter and medicine and for de-mining’.

“In addition to more weapons, Zelensky’s ‘Victory Plan’ is expected to include permission to use western-supplied missiles against targets inside Russia and fast-track admission to Nato and the European Union.

[…] By Zelensky’s […] logic, anything short of the expulsion of Russian forces from all territory occupied since 2014 constitutes a ‘defeat’. And by extension, Ukraine must continue fighting for as long as it takes until that is achieved, by any means necessary – including, as Ukraine’s new foreign minister Andrii Sybiha suggested last week, drafting some of the million Ukrainian men who have fled abroad. There can be no peace, in other words, without reconquest and the punishment of the aggressors.”

Read: Key Ukrainian Stronghold of Ugledar About To Fall, After ‘The Fortress’ Resisted Russian Advances for Two and a Half Years

But a narrative of peace and security over victory and justice is emerging in Ukraine itself, because the reality is that the territorial partition of Ukraine has already happened.

“Is Zelensky simply being naive in continuing to insist that Ukraine can actually return to its pre-war borders – or is he, as some of his domestic opponents are suggesting, in fact creating a stab-in-the-back narrative of western betrayal that will allow him to enter talks with Russia without losing face? According to Ukraine’s former prosecutor-general Yurii Lutsenko, an opposition politician and former leader of the Maidan revolution, the ambitious wish list that Zelensky is presenting to Washington is actually designed to be rejected. Without the missiles, planes and Nato membership he demands, Zelensky can plausibly argue that Ukraine has been let down by its allies and has no choice but to negotiate.

[…] Part of Ukrainian society will consider any kind of ceasefire or armistice freezing the conflict along the line of control as a terrible betrayal – a peace without honor. […]  Having a third party on which to lay all the blame – in the form of the West – is a politically useful way of reconciling those Ukrainians who demand peace and those who insist on justice, and could be the key to keeping Ukraine governable after the war’s end.”

Read more:

Western Officials: Zelensky’s ‘Victory Plan’ Not a Game-Changer, but a ‘Wish List’ – Allies Weigh Reaching out to Putin – Russian Forces Enter Ugledar as Frontline Crumbles

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