In recent weeks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been contradicting the US narrative concerning a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine, and his comments are angering Western officials.
US and European officials told The Washington Post that Zelensky’s calls for calm are a cause for concern. After speaking with President Biden last week, Zelensky held a long press conference where he said Western leaders were creating a “panic” by claiming Russia is preparing to invade.
Earlier in January, Biden suggested the US and NATO might not have a coordinated response if Russia makes a “minor incursion” into Ukraine.
Zelensky responded on Twitter and wrote, “We want to remind the great powers that there are no minor incursions and small nations.” A senior US official who spoke anonymously to the Post called Zelensky’s response “mind-boggling.”
“We’re his most important ally and he’s poking us in the eye and creating daylight between Washington and Kyiv,” the US official said. “It’s self-sabotage more than anything else.”
Since coming into office in 2019, Zelensky has maintained the Ukrainian government’s pro-Western stance that has been the norm since the US-backed coup in 2014. The fact that his frustration elicits such a response from a US official demonstrates how much control Washington expects to have over Kyiv.
Ukrainian officials continue to contradict claims from the US government and US media outlets. On Saturday, CNN and Reuters reported that the US has seen “indications” Russia has sent blood supplies near Ukraine’s border, signaling invasion plans. But Ukraine strongly denied the report, calling it “psychological warfare” meant to create “panic.”
Maybe Putin will get his demand met that Ukraine should not join NATO directly from Ukraine. The US is focusing on weapons. I think the President of Ukraine is worrying more about caskets.
Zelensky was a comedian. He had no credibility as a leader or politician before entering office. Pardon the pun but he is a joke. Biden is a bigger joke.
But he’s was elected as a populist, elected precisely for being an anti-pol, like The Donald; with the difference that comedians are typically not narcissists.
The people of Ukraine knew that Zelensky was a comedian and voted for him because he was preferable to the other candidates.
Which is precisely why he is like Trump. While Zelensky wasn’t an oligarch, undoubtedly one was behind him, just as Trump was supported by certain oligarchs, according to Pepe Escobar, not to mention being one himself. So Zelensky was always just another pawn who promised “cooperation with Russia” just like Trump, while doing the opposite. So-called “democracy” is the same everywhere – a plethora of lies to keep the electorate cowed and satisfied in their delusions.
Unlike the US and UK, Zelensky has to care about what happens to the Ukraine economy, which was tanking worse than usual over war fears.
Not to mention the carnage to be wrought if war did break out on his soil and not contained just to the two eastern oblasts.
Zelensky may have been halfways prepared to fight Russia to the last American, but the US made clear, they aren’t stationing in Ukraine.
There’s nothing for the Ukraine power elite in a war they’d have to fight alone.
Yes, Zelensky was a naif; has since been submerged in a crash course polysci from the uni’s most overbearing headmaster; with the upshot that he may now understand that his Master is not to benevolent, his own gov’t madly self-seeking, and his generals and colonels, not an army, but a congeries of totally unreliable opportunists (just like the US trained Afghan and Iraq armies).
Zelensky is almost certainly on the way out. The only question is will it by fleeing the country, in prison, or dead. The CIA and the neocons don’t need him. They have plenty of proxies in Ukraine they can use to get the war started. They brought Poroshenko back for a reason.
…. They brought Poroshenko back for a reason….
This
The Ukraine will suffer the most in any war. It’s imsanity.
Will the outspoken supporters and generous donors really care??
Ukraine needs new leadership, this President is a loser, he reminds me of Trump.
….“We’re his most important ally and he’s poking us in the eye and
creating daylight between Washington and Kyiv,” the US official said……
Excellent!!
daylight!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yes, it’s a hopeful sign. And the irony is almost as good -all this heroic scale drama to save the damsel from the villain, and herself absolves him of malicious intent.
Still, Zelensky better beware of ladyhawks.
My God—Just call Victoria and have him replaced.
Yes he better have his passport ready.
The EU wanted Klitschko (heavyweight boxer/champion), but Vickie said “Ef the EU. Yats (Yatsenyuk) is our man!” in that tapped phone call.
“US and European officials told The Washington Post that Zelensky’s calls for calm are a cause for concern.”
Most normal human beings think calm is a good thing.
Unanimous “officials” e.g., taxpayer paid public servants, should heed the sentiment of the American people and stop the warmongering.
I just noticed the article on the front page about Biden appointing Bridget Brink as the new Ambassador to Ukraine. So I looked her up. Not much on her except for some Congressional testimony over the Burisma issue.
Turns out from 2015-2016 under Obama, she was a Deputy Assistant Secretary in the European Bureau, where her responsibilities were for six countries: Ukraine, Belarus, Moldava, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia. In that post she was responsible for developing and executing foreign policy towards Ukraine.
Guess who she reported to: Victoria Nuland.
She also mentions in her testimony that “our job was to push for reform and anti-corruption efforts because we were spending a lot of taxpayer money to support this government.”
She also claims that Hunter Biden’s presence on the board had “zero policy impact.” Yeah, right…
She also mentioned, in discussing how much money wsa spent by the US on Ukrainian anti-corruption efforts, that the US spent $3 billion in loan guarantees and almost a billion in other forms of assistance. So add another $4 billion to the $5 billion Nuland spent overthrowing Yanukovich. And that money was not entirely spent on anti-corruption efforts, so that means much of it were elsewhere.
Also, when asked about whether Hunter Biden’s presence on the board of Burisma conflicted with Biden’s statement that Ukrainian officials should separate their business dealing from their duties, her attorney instructed her not to answer.
She also stated that the “main policy line” of the US was “the fact that Russia’s aggression in the Donbass and the attempted annexation of Crimea was an enormous security threat, not just for Ukraine, but for all of Europe.”
So, bottom line: Biden appoints another probable neocon as Ambassador to Ukraine.
This sorority of ladyhawks, from Hillary and “F the EU” Nuland to “Bloody Gina”, astounds me. Seems they’re everywhere in gov’t these days, a new Skull & Bones. I haven’t followed pop cult since adolescence; … am supposing it the culprit, promoting these latter day lady macbeths. Thanks for outing her, Richard.
Let’s not forget Niki Haley.
….and Samantha Power, all following in the footsteps of that pathetic warhawk, Madeline Albright.
Much to Amerikkka’s dismay, this war fever with Russia will fade; Zelensky doesn’t want it, Putin doesn’t want it, and Amerikkka will be forced to seek war elsewhere, since we are unable to exist without it.
China’s next on the list.
I keep wondering why Zelensky doesn’t just get on the phone with Putin and, as president of Ukraine, cut the security deal with Russia that would put an end to all this nonsense … this dangerous-to-Ukraine — and the rest of humanity — Neocon nonsense.
Promise that Ukraine won’t join NATO. And while he’s at it, maybe ask Putin to help protect Ukraine from further US/UK/NATO aggression. Renormalize relations. Join the BRI. Join the future.
Just frikkin switch sides. Do an Assad. Invite Russian protection, and take Ukraine’s — and his own — head out of the Neocon noose. I bet Vlad could have a security detail in Kyiv to protect Z faster than the Azov battalion could mobilize his assassination.
“I bet Vlad could have a security detail in Kyiv to protect Z faster than the Azov battalion could mobilize his assassination.”
You answered the question that came to mind after I read your first sentence/paragraph. 🙂
Maybe not. The CIA is just across the street at the US Embassy. And they probably have a guy inside Zelensky’s office keeping an eye on him. He can talk, but if he actually tries to “do” anything…
This is not only about the isolation of Russia by surrounding it with NATO (aka US) military bases but also about LNG. The Canadian and US hydrocarbon ie LNG industry will be the winners using the Ukraine as the staging ground, not to mention the EU which will be even more under the control of the US as well as paying a much higher price for LNG than the price it would pay for Russian gas.
Although it looks as if there is a chance Iran will be allowed to get its energy production back online, the loss of Russia’s natural gas will seriously harm Europe and will raise prices here as well. I think the LNG industry could get a windfall. But I don’t think the industry can possibly compensate for the disruptions that a war would bring.
Iran will take years to ramp up its oil production to anywhere near offset the loss of Russian gas to Europe. I bet that part of any “deal” with Iran will force Iran to price any of it’s oil/gas production for export in US dollars rather than Euros, Rial, Rubles or Yuan.
So we are all supposed to believe Biden(!) and Boris(!) and Blinken(!) but not the man in Kiev and certainly not the man you think is the devil incarnate.Pres.Putin, who for some reason defying all motive,you claim will “imminently” invade a hostile burden of a country he has spent 8 years waiting for the agreement for a solution to be implemented. Patient diplomacy (allowing the parties to the conflict ie Ukraine government and Donbass “republics” to negotiate and make a special status for the Eastern part within Ukraine) has been the Minsk plan supported by Russia and the others but NOT implemented by Ukraine. Russia wants peace and neutrality for country 404 but the West obviously does not.
It must be like walking on a tightrope for Zelensky. He’s very pleased to get the anti-tank weapons to use against the separatists. But he’s also worried that the US might actually push Russia to war because if that happens, there will be no more Ukraine. He’s probably also concerned that US intervention has utterly devastated the lives of the people who have been “rescued” in such places as Libya, Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan.