LOS ANGELES.–German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, 66. and 47-year-old Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky pledged their undying loyalty to the cause of beating back 72-year-old Russian President Vladimir Putin, only one day before Scholz gets bounced out of office. Zelensky is so desperate for EU support that he’s constantly on the move trying to spread more disinformation about 78-year-old President Donald Trump’s attempt to end the Ukraine War. Zelensky acts like it’s his war to end since his soldiers have been sacrificed in the conflict. Zelensky’s only problems involves he expects the U.S. to foot his bill for his Kiev government and war with the Kremlin. So, actually, the U.S. as a bigger dog in the fight, seeking to save the U.S. from an unending drain on the U.S. Treasury now over $300 billion. Scholz supports Zelensky’s right for inclusion in any future peace talks.
Scholz ran afoul with the German public in the lead up to tomorrow’s elections, running far behind 69-year-old, attorney Friedrich Merz, head of the conservative Christian Democratic Union, the same party as 70-year-old former German Chancellor Angela Merkel. How ironic that Scholz thinks showing solidarity with Zelensky helps his cause before he’s tossed out of office tomorrow for being one of German’s weakest leaders in decades. “In future negotiations on peace in Ukraine, Ukraine must be at the table and questions about Europe’s security must be discussed together with Europeans,” said German government spokesman Seffen Hebestreit. Scholz knows the Zelensky has little say in peace talks because he doesn’t want them, preferring to keep fighting the Kremlin indefinitely as long as the U.S. pays for it. Scholz was the perfect lame duck to help pitch Zelensky’s cause.
Zelensky doesn’t want peace in Ukraine on Putin’s terms because he fought a three-year war at the U.S. expense to drive Russian forces from Ukraine. Zelensky promised with his counteroffensive in 2023 that he would drive every Russian soldier from Ukraine by the end of 2023. Well, everyone knows how that turned out with Zelensky blaming a lack of weapons necessary to complete the job. So, if Zelensky had his way under Trump, he would ask Trump to give him more cash-and-weapons so he can complete the job in the near future. Trump has heard all about Zelensky’s promises to beat the Russian Federation, but, more importantly, to save European democracy from the Russian menace. Zelensky has watched his country battered by Russia into ruins, wrecking its infrastructure, killing thousands, driving millions into exile and losing its best sovereign territory.
Zelensky makes the rounds in the EU to insist that they have a seat at the bargaining table. But no one in the EU has any relationship with Putin after following Biden’s lead in destroying EU-Russian relations over the last three years. Scholz made plenty of pledges to Zelensky now that he’s leaving office. You’d think Zelensky would want to meet with Germany’s next Chancellor Friedrich Merz but that won’t happen until after tomorrow’s election. “This is basically a classic perpetrator-victim reversal,” Merz told RBB public radio in Berlin on Friday. “That’s the Russian narrative, that’s how [President Vladimir] Putin has been presenting it for years and I’m honestly quite shocked that Donald Trump has now obviously adopted it himself,” Merz said, putting Trump on notice. Germany is unwilling to take on the war in Ukraine without U.S. funding.
Merz wants to present a unifying front when it comes to the Ukraine War. “It is now important that the Europeans agree, very, very quickly on a common strategy for dealing with this issue,” regarding Trump’s new relationship with the Russian Federation. No one twisted the EU’s arm about breaking off diplomatic relations with the Kremlin. Brussels followed 82-year-old former U.S. president Joe Biden over the cliff, essentially breaking off diplomatic relations. Now that Trump decided to reset normal diplomatic relations with Putin, it leaves Brussels looking like they’ve been blindsided. Everyone in Brussels knew that if Trump won office he would work feverishly to end the Ukraine War and restore normal diplomatic relations with the Kremlin to benefit world peace and prosperity. Merz must juggle reality with Zelensky’s demands to keep the war going.
Merz should do everything possible to keep the radical left Green Party out of his governing coalition. German Foreign Secretary Annalena Baerbock encourages Merz to put more pressure on Trump for his peace talks on Ukraine. “A sham peace—that is, a peace that is not peace, but blackmail or a surrender is not peace, but the opposite, further preparation for even more war and violence,” said Baerbock. “That is why I will support Ukraine as long as its needs it, because it’s our peace,” showing the kind of confusion in Germany but also in Brussels. When French President Emmanuel Macron called his emergency meeting last Monday in Paris, EU delegates left more confused than ever. Baerbock does recall it was Biden’s war with the Kremlin, not the EU’s. So, she’s completely mixed up on whether Germany and the EU would pay for Ukraine’s war with the Kremlin.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.