Ukrainian President Volodymer Zelensky, 44, showed his hubris today, telling the Russian people to revolt against 69-year-old President Vladimir Putin. If things weren’t bad enough for Ukraine, Zelensky rubs salt in the wound playing Alexi Navalny, the 45-year-old jailed Russian dissident whose clandestine organization has tried for years to depose Putin. Putin understands why President Joe Biden, 79, and his 59-year-old Secretary of State Antony Blinken demanded that Putin release Navalny from prison. Biden and Blinken like to criticize Putin for meddling in U.S. elections and other key industries but has no problems telling Putin to release Navalny from prison. Now Zelensky gets into the act believing his own charm offensive, telling the Free World that Ukraine is the last firewall to communist tyranny around the globe, begging the U.S. and NATO to battle the Russian Federation.
Zelensky’s pleas, yesterday to Congress on a secure Zoom Conferencing link, told 100 U.S. Senators and House members that the Pentagon should establish a no-fly-zone over Ukraine to stop the destruction and carnage. Zelensky knows that if the U.S. or Western alliance started shooting down Russian fighter jets it would start WW III. But to Zelensky, he’s less concerned about WW III or nuclear war that Ukraine beating back the Russian invasion that’s caused widespread destruction. If you listen to the U.S. or European Press, Zelensky has done a heroic job of beating back the Russian invasion. But with the strategic port city of Kherson falling to Russia, it doesn’t fit the Ukrainian or anti-Russian narrative that Ukraine has beat back the Russian advance. All the Western press talks about is that the 40-mile long Russian convoy has stalled some 15 miles outside Kiev.
Ukrainian officials reported some 15,000 Russian military deaths, something such egregious propaganda, it resembles the infamous Baghdad Bob, whose happy talk about an Iraqi rout of U.S. forces during the March 20, 2003 invasion turned out fake. By April 10, 2003 Baghdad had fallen. Yet if you listen to the Western press, it regurgitates Ukrainian war propaganda. No one in Ukraine wants to admit that Russia has a stranglehold on Ukraine’s biggest cities and towns. “Citizens of Russia! For you, this is a struggle not only for peace in Ukraine! This is a fight for your country,” Zelensky told the Russian people in a televised speech. “If you keep silent now, only your poverty will speak for you later. And only repression will answer,” further antagonizing the Kremlin. Zelensky’s public rermarks infuriate the Kremlin, redoubles Putin’s effort to topple the Kiev government.
Zelsensky’s public charm offensive hat mesmerized U.S. lawmakers, willing to hand Ukraine $10 billion in military and humanitarian aid. It wasn’t that long ago when House Democrats accused former President Donald Trump of committing high-crimes-and-misdemeanors for threatening to withhold $400 million in military aid if Zelensky didn’t dig up dirt on Biden and his 51-year-old son Hunter. Zelensky’s done a masterful job squeezing cash out of the U.S. when no one really knows how the cash will be spent. No other nation on earth has given Zelensky a fraction of Biden’s cash commitment. Putin understands that Biden has turned the Ukraine War into a U.S. proxy war against the Russian Federation. Zelensky has zero incentive to negotiate a peaceful resolution to the war. Putin laid out clear demands for ending the war, including declaring Ukraine’s neutrality between East and West.
Telling the Russian people to rise up and overthrow Putin’s 22-year rein of power invites the Kremlin to double down on the war. Zelensky told U.S. lawmakers that if Ukraine didn’t succeed in beating back the Kremlin, Russians would invade other former Soviet satellites and others like Poland. White House officials, like Zelensky, have accused Putin to reinstating the defunct Soviet Union, seeking hegemony over its former slave states. Zelensky and the White House are playing a two-man game, controlling the U.S. and global media message that Putin is an implacable threat to democracy. Putin said he has no intent of invading other countries, certainly not NATO, know Article 5 would trigger military actions against the Russian Federation. Whether Putin admits it or not, he’s got his hand full in Ukraine and wants no part of battling NATO at some point in the near future.
White House officials demanded that China state publicly that it opposed Russia’s war in Ukraine. When Chinese President Xi Jinping said Feb. 25 that he backed Russia it was a blow to 43-year-old White House. Press Secretary Jen Psaki who demanded China state publicly their position. Xi said he understood Putin’s concerns about NATO encroachment because he doesn’t like the U.S. patrolling around in China’s maritime neighborhood. “What do you think of us?” said Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan. “ Are we your slaves . . .that whatever you say, we will doe?” in reference to U.S. demands that Islamabad denounce the Russian invasion. Biden boasts about how many Western powers denounce Putin. But clearly, there are plenty of U.N. states that are either neutral or don’t condemn Russia for the Feb. 24 invasion. Now that Zelensky gets $10 billion in U.S. cash, he’s not interested in a ceasefire.
