Volodymyr Zelenskyy secured his present post of President by promising peace with Russia and a steady lowering of tensions with that much larger country. In 2014, the Maidan rallies had helped cause the replacement of a Russia-friendly head of state with an avowed Russophile. Soon afterwards, large parts of Donetsk and Lugansk broke away to come under the indirect control of the protector of the separatists, Russia. Sensibly, the Russophobes in power in Kiev tacitly accepted the partition and continued within the rest of Ukraine to outlaw the Russian language and build what they claim to have been a completely “Ukrainian” identity. Russian Christian names and surnames were delicately changed to sound “Ukrainian”. Of course, the resulting names had never before been used in Ukraine. When reports that were regarded as credible reached President Putin that the Ukrainian military would soon launch an offensive to retake territory lost in 2014 he ordered the Russian armed forces to enter Ukraine on February 24, 2022 and, or so the claim was made, to pre-empt the reportedly imminent Ukrainian strike. We do not know what was in his mind at the time, but within days US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson convinced Zelenskyy that the Ukrainian army should fight the Russian army. In return, Ukraine was promised an abundance of help from the US and most countries in Europe. A former comic, Zelenskyy would enter the annals of history in Ukraine as the saviour who united the country in terms of territory by defeating Russia in a conventional war. Help was indeed massive, with a little more than 60% being provided by the US and the rest from within the EU.
Instead of becoming a war hero, President Zelenskyy has pressed the trigger and caused incalculable misery to the Ukrainian people. The Russian military was indeed weaker in non-nuclear conventional war than had previously been supposed, but nevertheless, strong enough to grab more territory from Ukraine. Prodding by the US and hawks on Russia in the EU made Zelenskyy ignore the rising cost in men and women and continue a conflict that has by now devastated Ukraine and made the country reliant on external assistance for its survival. Zelenskyy needs war to continue to cling on to his office and avoid elections, on the pretext that elections cannot be fought in wartime. Elections that he was sure to lose, hence his refusal to seek the mandate of the voters in this time of travail. Now that Donald Trump is the US President, he has all but cut off assistance to Ukraine. What weapons flow from the US to Ukraine are paid for by the European countries, a source of grumbling among the people in the EU. Several supporters of the war are dropping out as a consequence of the rising cost of keeping the Ukrainian war machine going. As European living standards drop, such grumbling is intensifying, leading several EU leaders to search for an exit ramp. Meanwhile, the US continues to make money under Trump, from the sale of weapons to Ukraine, every dollar of which is paid for by EU and UK taxpayers. Protest at the reported plan of President Trump to meet with President Putin in Hungary to discuss an end to the war is muted within the EU. Funding from Europe for the Ukraine war slowed down during the previous quarter and is getting even slower this quarter. Vice-President Vance spoke for the people of the US some weeks ago that the US was “done” with providing funding for the Ukraine war. A Trump-Putin reconciliation would indicate that Moscow is not as inextricably tied to Beijing as several had believed. It would mean that in a kinetic war between the US and China, Russia would not take part, or do exactly what China is doing in the case of the Ukraine war. Peace is within sight, and the sooner this happens, the better for the people of Ukraine and indeed the world.
