by Gordon Hahn
1 Comment on Sad Clown with the Circus Closed Down*: Zelenskiy's Demise
Introduction
Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zeleneksiy appears to be at the end of the line politically and perhaps biologically. Portraying himself as a fighter for peace, anti-corruption, and full democratization when he ran for and won the presidency in 2019, he proceeded to lead the country into war, further corruption, and de-republicanization (authoritarianization). On both a personal and global level this is high tragedy. A superb comedian and actor stars in a television fictional series as the president of Ukraine, rises in popularity, wins the country's presidency on a peace platform, and leads the country into a catastrophic, easily avoidable war that threatens the survival of his country and himself. The unreality of Ukraine refracts in our century of simulacra and disinformation through this icon moved from the television screen to real life politics, and the tragedy of it all is sold as a heroic triumph on the road to universal democracy, peace, and brotherhood. In the real world, however, there is a rub. The country is historically divided along every conceivable line (ethnic, linguistic, cultural, political, ideological, economic, and social), an almost accidental state cobbled together by communists but claimed by hapless republicans and determined ultra-nationalists. Thus, Zelenskiy becomes president of a fundamentally divided country further riven by schism as a result of two 'revolutions' - really revolts - and a civil war compounded by foreign (Russian) intervention.
Zelenskiy's emergence and victory are as surreal as the Maidan regime of which he assumed leadership. Born in a neofascist false flag terrorist snipers' massacre on 20 February 2014, the West and the champion of global republicanism, the United States, hailed the bloody terrorist attack as a peaceful, democratic revolution. To be sure, there were 'democrats' (i.e., republicans; few democrats exist anywhere) and 'grandmothers and children' on the Maidan, as one American fomenter of war put it, but they were too far and few among the mass of demonstrators on the Maidan to preclude the neofascists and their false flag snipers' operation. The Maidan in fact was led and easily infiltrated by a phalanx of corruptionaires, ultra-nationalists, and neo-fascists such as Petro Poroshenko, Andreij Parubiy, Oleh Tyagnybok, Andreij Biletskiy, Dmitro Yarosho, and many more of this ilk.
By the time Zelenskiy came to the political scene, the communist-manufactured state of Ukraine and its Maidan regime had been ruled for some five years by a network of oligarchic, ultranationalist and neofascist elements knighted by the West as yet another 'beacon of democracy' in the post-Soviet space. Zelenskiy, who had been a political nobody in 2014 and fictional television personality during the Maidan regime's first years under Poroshenko (no less a corrupt oligarch than Viktor Yanukovych the Maidan revolt had vanquished), assumed power with no political experience-his name coming ironically from the Russian and Ukrainian root 'zelen' for the word 'green.' Consistent with our simulacra century in which nothing is as it seems or is said to be, the great hope for Ukrainian republicanism was a creature of a corrupt and criminal oligarch, Ihor Kolomoiskiy, banned from entering the US by the Justice Department because of suspicions that, among other things, he was behind the murder of a leader of Ukraine's Jewish community. Again ironically, Zelenskiy and Kolomoiskiy are both Jews. More ironically still, Volodomyr Zelenskiy would become the symbolic foil to the West's 'totalitarian' nemesis and supposed 'Hitler of today', a man, who, like his father, possesses the same first name as Zelenskiy-the president of Russia, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.
Upon Zelenskiy's election, I thought that there was risk but also promise for Ukraine:
"The victory of television comedic actor and producer, President-elect Volodomyr Zelenskii, over the increasingly ultra-nationalist oligarch, outgoing President Petro Poroshenko, marked a rejection by a slim Ukrainian majority in the western regions of the oligarchic element in the Weimar Maidan oligarchic-ultranationalist hybrid regime. In the country's southeast it represents a full rejection of both the regime's oligarchic element and its increasingly active and vocal ultra-nationalist and neofascist element in the regime. The presidential election has been a positive process that opens the way for a possible but far from certain way out of Maidan Ukraine's dead end. However, the election in and of itself is not a turn towards a better Ukraine. That turn can now only just begin, and there is no guarantee of its success. To the contrary, there are powerful oligarchic and ideologically extremist forces who lost in the election and who face the prospect of a similar defeat in September's Rada elections and who will do everything possible to retain power and their positions in the bureaucracy, the siloviki departments, and the economy.
"...The Maidan regime - now on the verge of being the new opposition - plans to emasculate the office of the Ukrainian presidency in what can only be regarded as a parliamentary coup against the constitution and the sovereign will of the majority of the Ukrainian people as expressed in the presidential voting. Zelenskii himself is likely to fight corruption, to be sure, but he is unlikely to challenge the ultra-nationalists, neofascists, and their militarized combat organizations. As I wrote on my Facebook page just before the election, '(w)ithout a coup, assassination or election cancellation, it's Pres. Zelenskii, with all the promise and risk that entails' ( www.facebook.com/gordon.hahn1/posts/10218743500560174)" ( gordonhahn.com).
Moreover, Zelenskiy had hinted at the true nature of the Maidan takeover mythologized in the ubiquitous simulacra as a peaceful republican social revolution rather than an illegal and ultimately violent seizure of power by way of a terrorist false flag snipers' massacre on 20 February 2014. During his presidential campaign he referred to those in power as a result of the Maidan as "(p)eople whom came to power on blood are profiting on blood" (www.pravda.com.ua/news/2019/02/26/7207718/ and gordonhahn.com).
I soon came to realize that Zelenskiy was de-republicanizing and otherwise betraying his campaign promises, trapped especially on issues such as peace by the forces that surrounded his presidency in a regime, the character of which had been established before he came to power, by how it came to power, and through whom it had come to power ( gordonhahn.com and gordonhahn.com).
Zelenskiy, like Putin and other politicians, has his own personal limitations and weaknesses. When it comes to love for the limelight and delusions of grandeur, Zelenskiy outstrips most politicians and not least of all Putin. Almost all politicians are egoistic, but Zelenskiy is narcissistic. Putin may have limited, realistic visions of grandeur and a historical legacy, but they are non-delusional given their possible fruition as a result of his platform: a great power at the center of the Eurasian landmass. Zelenskiy's narcissism was fed by delusion and nurtured new ones, first, by his pre-political life in fiction, theater, and make-believe and his magical rise to entertainment popularity, riches, power, and international fame glory; then, second, by the fetishization of him orchestrated by the US, NATO, Europe, and others as a world hero, the West's protector, democracy's shield, the Winston Churchill and George Washington of his day before he had done little more than lead his country into war with its far more powerful neighbor (e.g., www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-23/zelenskiy-s-virtual-world-tour-proves-a-new-weapon-in-russia-war#xj4y7vzkg and www.forbes.com/sites/globalcitizen/2022/04/24/what-can-we-learn-from-zelenskyys-global-campaign-for-justice/). But contrary to Putin's platform, Zelenskiy's platform - Ukraine - is a weak facsimile of a powerful Slavic country. It is a recently formed country riven by ethnic, linguistic, historical, cultural, socioeconomic, and political divisons and polarization. Zelenskiy seems to have come to feel himself the glorious man on horseback fatefully bathing in the global spotlight. In fact, his situation was more akin to riding on a wild steed together with a drunken American cowboy jockey who, unarmed, was intent on chasing down and poking a wild bear. Not surprisingly, Zelenskiy is now being thrown off the horse to be trampled on by said bear, with the cowboy flying on to more saloons and greener pastures. In short, it now looks as if the risks inherent in the inexperienced Zelenskiy standing at the helm of a state being pushed into a fight with Russia are playing out towards a very negative, tragic end for both Zelenskiy and his country.
Tragedies are not just a function of the flawed characters of those they destroy but of circumstances that play well with their victim's shortcomings and weaknesses. Zelenskiy entered on to the world stage when it was cracking under the weight of momentous shifts that were depleting his chief ally's competitive advantages. He joined the US in embrace at a time of American decay and division at home and denial and delusion abroad; when America's great political culture of compromise began devolving into intolerance, ideological prejudice, eschewing all principle, republicanism downgrading to authoritarianism, and republican 'missionarianism' distorting to messianism and maintenance of its liberal empire at almost all cost and by any means. Indispensable, exceptional America's enemies and friends are expendable.
Zelenskiy's failures also have made him eminently expendable and, in some ways, obligatorily so. On every score - war versus peace, corruption versus the rule of law, and authoritarianism versus republican rule - Zelenskiy disappointed and did so to his peril and that of his American sponsors. On each score, the negative trends under Zelenskiy during wartime had their origins in his pre-war struggles to consolidate his power. They cannot be written off solely to the effect of the war. They are a direct function of Ukraine's less than republican political culture and the resulting character of Mr. Zelenskiy as well. And in each case, the failure provides incentive to elements among his former acolytes in the US and the West to turn their back on him and his poor compatriots. As a failed war leader his 'green' credentials were exposed. Zelenskiy's failure to overcome his and his country's corruption plagued the war effort, and their theft of their donors' wealth alienated those donors, who had only a year prior lavished praise, cash, and weapons upon him. In addition to betraying the West's professed value of the rule of law, Zelenskiy did not just weaken but now in the throes of war is dismantling Ukraine's weak republic, violating the West's once most sacred value, nowadays its most valuable simulacra and subterfuge. Now, with Ukraine ever slowly, gradually but very clearly losing the NATO-Russia Ukrainian War, the US and NATO are scapegoating and throwing its little Churchill and his country under the bus in large part, again ironically, because of the needs of republican power struggles, elections. The former comic is little more than a sad clown with his circus closed down. Below, I review Zelenskiy's record on the three fronts of peace, corruption, and 'democracy' (republican rule).
War and Peace
Perhaps the central point of Zelenskiy's pre-election platform and the one that likely attracted the largest number of voters was war peace with Russia. President Zelenskiy failed and failed miserably and catastrophically here. Rather than putting Ukraine first, he bent to the temptations and demands of the far away West and refused to accommodate in any way, to find a reasonable modus vivendi with his powerful and historically very interested neighbor, Russia, through the hard work of statesmanship. Zelenskiy's inexperience and ego likely played pivotal roles in his disastrous decision-making. Easily seduced by the blandishments from the West - weapons, money, democratic hero worship, and international glory - he abandoned the very promising March 2022 Istanbul peace process begun in Gomel that had led to an agreement toward a ceasefire and peace talks initialed by both sides that would have excluded Ukrainian membership in NATO ( braveneweurope.com; ( 1plus1.ua; ÐнÑеÑвÑÑ ÐÑÐ°Ñ Ð°Ð¼Ð¸Ð¸ полноÑÑÑÑ. ; braveneweurope.com; 𝕏 https://twitter.com/perni16812/status/1730233662107500981?s=51&t=n5DkcqsvQXNd3DfCRCwexQ); ÐÐ¾Ð¹Ð½Ñ Ð¼Ð¾Ð³Ð»Ð¾ не бÑÑÑ - Ðавид ÐÑÐ°Ñ Ð°Ð¼Ð¸Ñ ; contra.substack.com; and threadreaderapp.com). Zelenskiy's inexperience did not allow him to make a realistic geopolitical cost-benefit analysis, regarding Western promises of NATO and EU membership. The EU was not a problem for Russia outside of being a doorway to NATO membership.
The grave threat of Ukraine's failed war outcome should have been obvious to Zelenskiy. If they were not then this might explain his catastrophic decision - perhaps fatal for himself, the Maidan regime, and perhaps even Ukrainian statehood - to reject the promising March 2022 negotiations with Russia ( braveneweurope.com). Nevertheless, he opted to join with NATO in a full-fledged war with Moscow in an unlikely fight to protect Washington's and Brussels' 'right' to expand NATO along Russia' borders and return territories lost to Ukraine that resulted from previous ill-advised cooperation with NATO's Maidan Ukraine project. The fatal problem was that the threat of NATO expansion was an existential one for his powerful, suspicious neighbor that was determined to never allow Ukraine to become a NATO member because of the historical lessons of repeated interference, intervention, and invasion from the West through territory now called Ukraine Gordon M. Hahn, The Russian Dilemma: [Security, Vigilance, and Relations with the West from Ivan III to Putin (McFarland, 2021)]. Zelenskiy lacked geostrategic common sense and an understanding of the need to return to Viktor Yanukovych's policy of playing the West and Russia off against each other, remaining non-committal regarding joining either camp - de facto or de jure neutrality - and avoiding conflict with Russia by rejecting NATO membership, while pursuing EU membership. After all, the decision-maker for NATO is situated in distant Washington, thousands of miles from Ukraine's region, and Ukraine's membership for the West is a luxury not a vital strategic necessity of existential proportions as it is for Russia. Even Barak Obama understood this. This meant that if push came to shove with Moscow, the West would be unwilling to make the necessary commitment in treasure not to mention blood in order to make it happen and protect Ukraine. Ultimately, Moscow understood this and would have resisted Ukrainian membership in NATO regardless. Zelenskiy failed to understand, and his demise is basically a consequence of this.
Key was an associated failure to take concrete political and organizational measures to undercut the main pillar of support for Russophobia, for the 'anti-terrorist operation' against Donbass rebels, and ultimately for war against Russia: Ukraine's robust ultranationalist and neofascist elements. Here, Zelenskiy may not to have lacked courage so much as the considerable political acumen that would be needed to isolate and exclude this sufficiently powerful Ukrainian force from the political scene. One can recall his open face-to-face confrontation at the Donbass front with neofascists who opposed his participation in the Minsk peace process with Moscow and who were repeatedly violating its ceasefire regime. What he lacked more was the organizational and bureaucratic know-how and experience to weaken the extremists. The prevalence of corruption over principle in Ukrainian political and economic culture may have been pivotal here, making it a bridge too far to cobble together the necessary anti-fascist front, as many oligarchs, including his own sponsor Igor Kolomoiskii, had financed neofascist groups like Right Sector, Azov, and perhaps today's Volunteer Ukrainian Corp (DUK).
Thus, Zelenskiy soon had to abandon any determination to see the Minsk process through to peace, and Kiev never fulfilled several of the key, priority first steps required to move it forward ( gordonhahn.com). We know this because, among other things, Zelensky followed similar admissions by former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and former French President Francois Hollande to this effect. As the Ukrainian paper Ukrainskaya Pravda noted regarding Zelenskiy: "Zelenskyy remarked that he treated Minsk agreements only as the official avenue for negotiations where it was possible to 'solve at least some problems', so he started using it for prisoner of war swaps." Zelenskiy acknowledged: "(C)oncerning Minsk agreements in general, I told Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel that we cannot fulfill them in this way." At the Normandy meeting that included Putin in 2019, Zelenskiy announced his intention not to fulfill the agreements. He said to all the participants of the meeting, that "the agreement, as it stands, cannot be fulfilled" ( www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/02/9/7388717). As we now know he opted for the West's strategy of building up the Ukrainian military to the standards of NATO and those needed to attempt to take Crimea and the Donbass back by force.
With the failed 'counteroffensive' this past summer, Zelenskiy again surrendered to his Western sponsors' self-interested whims to the detriment of his military, state, and people. Moreover, this catastrophic failure was undertaken despite the opposition of the Commander-in-Chief of Ukraine's armed forces, Gen. Valeriy Zalyuzhniy, sparking civil-military tensions that pose another threat to Zelenskiy and Ukraine. Zelenskiy and his talents, a con-man famous for talking tables into donations during comedy club performances, did not translate well into the cut throat world of American and international politics today. He fell victim to a better more powerful con-men, Joe 'Big Guy' Biden in DC and his NATO minions in Brussels. Nor did Zelenskiy's talents translate well into the cruel realities of military mathematics, and he miscalculated the potential of this summer's counteroffensive. Zelenskiy will be unable to con the con-men in the West any longer. He and his country are a burden now as the dollars they love to count and political power they yearn to wield are threatened by the 'Ukraine debacle' in an election year. Zelenskiy thought he could use the West, only to find out they abused him and his country.
Ukrainian Corruption
Although the Maidan movement, financed by the West, originally coalesced around the issue of corruption in Ukraine under Maidan-dethroned President Yanukovych (secondary to the naïve belief in a rapid improvement of the Ukrainian economy upon achieving EU membership), corruption persisted and even deepened under the Maidan regime's President Petro Poroshenko. Zelenskiy's promises finally to fight corruption seriously was the secondmost important point on Zelenskiy's election platform in terms of drawing support leading to the landslide victories of his in the presidential race and of his 'Servants of the People' (Slugi naroda) party in the subsequent Rada elections. This promise too was betrayed by Zelenskiy. Here commitment and organizational problems told again, but Zelenskiy himself remained mired in personal corruption as the Pandora Papers demonstrated ( www.icij.org/investigations/pandora-papers; offshoreleaks.icij.org; and theguardian.com).
Organizationally speaking, there were a plethora of institutions, at least five, involved in conducting and terminating corruption investigations, a veritable alphabet soup: NABU, AntAC, SBU, and MVD. Because of corruption and the lack of rule of law and in some cases penetration by ultranationalist and neofascist groups, however, these agencies have their own agendas. This and Zelenskiy own corruption and political preferences mean that much of what looks like anti-corruption activity is actually more corruption and settling of political and business scores.
I will not go into detail on the scale and scope of Ukrainian corruption - a task that would require several volumes - but instead will provide two data points on the lack of any significant improvement in Ukraine's poor corruption status. First, in 2019, the year of Zelenskiy's arrival to Bankovaya Ukraine was ranked 126th in the corruption perception ranking with an index of 30 out of a possible 100 by the pro-Western Transparency International or TI ( knowledgehub.transparency.org, p. 19). Its most recent TI rating in 2022 was 116th, with an index of 33 ( www.transparency.org/en/countries/ukraine; images.transparencycdn.org, p. 3). It should be noted that this slight improvement could be the result of greater declines by some ten countries rather than Ukraine's improvement, and one cannot discount the possibility of sympathy for Ukraine influencing this Western-based institution.
Second, in Time's recent exposè on the Zelenskiy regime based on interviews with him and members of his administration in October, "a top presidential adviser" asked the interviewer, Simon Shuster, who thought corruption in the country was on the decline, to turn off his recorder so he could speak more freely. "Simon, you're mistaken," he says. "People are stealing like there's no tomorrow." "Even the firing of the Defense Minister did not make officials 'feel any fear,' he adds, because the purge took too long to materialize. The President was warned in February that corruption had grown rife inside the ministry, but he dithered for more than six months" (my emphasis) ( time.com). Thus, even under the threats of wartime and a cutoff of military assistance, which also has been massively stolen for resale, Zelenskiy and Ukrainians persist in their horrendously corrupt behaviors. Indeed, Zelenskiy recently fired the heads of all 50 Ukrainian military recruitment centers for corruption, and local commanders are not reporting frontline deaths in order to pocket the deceased soldiers' salaries. In sum, under Zelenskiy there has been little to none of the kind of cultural change needed to undermine deep-rooted corruption.
Authoritarian versus Republican Rule
Ukraine's already weak republic quickly deteriorated to life support after Zelenskiy's arrival to Bankovaya and has since straightlined with nary a word from the Western 'community of democracies.' In short, the Maidan regime crossed over into authoritarian territory even before the war. For the first time in its post-Soviet history, Ukraine became more authoritarian than republican. Moreover, Zelenskiy has proven expert at alienating every political force in the country from both his team and his corrupt, so-called "Servants of the People" (Slugi naroda) party, named after his hit television series.
Before the war Zelenskiy banned three 'pro-Russian' political parties. After the war began Zelenskiy banned all 'pro-Russian' as well as centrist parties, except Poroshenko's sufficiently nationalist 'European Solidarity' party, whose leader, former president Poroshenko, was indicted just before the war. Banned parties include: the Opposition Party - For Life, the Shariy Party, Nashi, the Opposition Bloc, the Left Opposition, the Union of Left Forces, State, the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine, the Socialist Party of Ukraine, the Socialists' Party, and the Volodymyr Saldo Bloc. "Any activity of politicians aimed at splitting or collaborating will not succeed," Zelenskiy explained in executing the ban ( news.yahoo.com). The only part of the political spectrum with which Zelenskiy was able to find some modus vivendi has been with the far right, ranging from ultranationalist to neofascist parties, none of which have been banned or ever even harassed leagally or otherwise ( gordonhahn.com). For example, neofascist founder of the extremist Right Sector party, commander of the semi-autonomous Ukrainian Volunteer Army, and mastermind of the 2 May 2014 Odessa terrorist pogrom Dmitro Yarosh became an official advisor to the Chief of the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Valeriy Zalyuzhniy on Zelenskiy's watch.
Not a single remaining legal party in Ukraine supports the building of a civic rather than national culture and including rather than excluding, ethnic Russians, the Russian language and culture in the Ukrainian polity and society. Suppression of opposition and Russian-language media occurred before the war with the closure of three television stations and the requirement that all media have Ukrainian language versions led to a sharp narrowing of freedom of speech and information, particularly for ethnic Russians and other Russophones in Ukraine. The Russian language and increasingly Russian culture and ethnic Russians themselves became targets of censorship, regime-tolerated pogroms, administrative measures and the like. For example, Russian was removed from Ukrainian schools, and all Russian-language schools were closed. None of this was did Zelenskiy attempt to repeal. Moreover, elements and media of the Maidan regime continued under Zelenskiy to characterize the Donbas Russian-Ukrainians as 'vatniki' and the like, bombing civilian residences, killing and injuring not at random so much as targeting Donbassians for their Russian language, culture, and political views. Thus, he rewarded a state medal to a member of the neofascist Right Sector party, who had openly admitted to the New York Times that he repeatedly violated ceasefire under Minsk 2 at the Donbass front and looked forward to the day he could feed the bines of Russian children to his dogs ( gordonhahn.com). The Hungarian and Rumanian minorities also have suffered from some of these discriminatory and racist tendencies.
Zelenskiy has used the court system as he has anti-corruption measures to repress his political opponents. His prosecutors indicted former President Petro Poroshenko with treason and put him under de facto house arrest until the war began. Zelenskiy also restructured the Supreme Court in violation of the Ukrainian constitution. After the Russian invasion, Kiev adopted a new law against collaborationism, which stipulates sentences of up to 15 years for cooperating with Russia in any way. This would presumably include any business dealings with Russian persons and companies. Any political party or public organization, including any religious organization, that has a member convicted under this new statute is subject to being banned. Cooperation or collaboration with the aggressor country (Russia) can be not only military, political and administrative but also economic and informational. This law has been used to effectively shut down the Moscow Russian Orthodox Patriarchate-affiliated Orthodox Church of Ukraine, including the expropriation of its churches and monasteries and the arrest and imprisonment of priests, including the church's metropolitan. All this has been done at closed trials and in the absence of published evidence. Meanwhile, ultranationalists' and neofascists' murders and beatings of journalists and others is treated with impunity.
Any refutation of Ukraine's sovereignty or cooperation with any occupational regime, local administration or educational institution brings a prisons sentence of up to three years and a ban from public office for 10-15 years ( strana.news). Thus, the law appears to be designed not just to punish quislings but also to be another attempt by Zelenskiy to use the conflict with Russia and Donbass to consolidate power in his hands in alliance with a few nationalist oriented groups. It should also be noted that before the war similar laws made any arguments in support of Donbass or Crimean autonomy no less independence or reunification with Russia or any display of communist symbols punishable by imprisonment, thereby undermining centrist and pro-Russian parties.
In addition to these divisive measures, all of Ukraine's powerful oligarchs from politics were banned from politics before the war by a law passed by the Rada on Zelenskiy's initiative. The arrest of Zelenskiy's own sponsor of both his entertainment and political careers, oligarch, PrivatBank owner, and Burisma founder Ihor Kolomoiskii came after the war. It remains unclear whether this decision, which undercuts Zelenskiy himself, was required by the Biden administration in connection with the US president's own corruption difficulties and Republican congressional and FBI investigations of he and his some, Hunter, closely tied to and perhaps illegally hired by the Kolomoiskii-founded Ukrainian natural gas company, Burisma. Moreover, Zelenskiy created a new cohort of enemies when he announced plans to be implemented this year that will reduce the Ukrainian state bureaucracy by two-thirds. This will put hundreds of thousands of embittered officials with intricate knowledge of state organization, function, and financing out of work and on the streets looking for jobs in a war-torn country that has mobilization legislation requiring all able-bodied male citizens to serve in the armed forces, with legislation bringing women into the draft equation pending. These outcasts retain contacts with former colleagues in the bureaucracy and can carry out intrigues to undermine Zelenskiy, his policies, and the regime itself.
Before the war, three opposition-oriented television stations were closed ( strana.news). Media manipulation, outright disinformation, and lies became a hallmark of the actor/producer Zelenskiy's regime-a regime filled with producers, scenario writers, and PR professionals ( gordonhahn.com and gordonhahn.com). Zelenskiy's masking of reality with the by now ubiquitous postmodernist virtuality and 'strategic communication' falsehoods are being exposed and exacerbate the delegitimizing effect of the war. Republics cannot live in a society, polity, and state flooded by lies.
Since the war began, all of these trends have intensified. Zelenskiy placed all television channels under a single command with censorship and uniform broadcasting that ban dissenting voices as well as closed five more television stations. The newspaper Strana (strana.ua), pressured both by the SBU and the neofascist Right Sector before the war and Zelenskiy on its eve, was forced to emigrate after the war began ( gordonhahn.com and strana.news).
Before the war under Zelenskiy the influences of Nazism and neofascism in most part were kept off mainstream media, though Zelenskiy could be seen on the news in late 2021 giving medals to a Right Sector fighter, who previously bragged to the New York Times that he frequently violated the Minsk talks' ceasefire agreement and wanted to have his dog eat Russian children's bones ( gordonhahn.com). Mostly, however, such nods to fascism were 'confined' to official and societal symbols like Stepan Bandera and those of political parties such as Right Sector and 'Freedom', and the independent neofascist-dominated volunteer battalions and larger units such as Azov, the National Korpus, and the Right Sector's Volunteer Ukrainian Corps (DUK). Ukrainians are beginning to 'remove their masks' under the pressure of war. The old, softer codes - such as terms for pro-Russians and Donbassians as 'vatniki' and 'moskaly' (a defamatory term for ethnic Russians) who were 'celebrated' in a frequent public ritual calling for the stabbing moskaly - are being pushed aside. A recent television segment saw an anchor of sorts call for the extermination of all Russians, starting with Russian children. The speaker quoted Nazi Adolf Eichmann, who helped carry out the holocaust, "since they call us Nazis." He cited Eichmann's phrase that "in order to destroy a nation you must destroy, first of all, children" ( t.co; 𝕏 https://mobile.twitter.com/clintehrlich/status/1503784248813125635; and strana.news). This is standard thinking among neofascists such as in RS, DUK, Azov, C18 and the like [see Gordon M. Hahn, Ukraine over the Edge (McFarland, 2018) and gordonhahn.com].
With the war, Ukrainian state officials and media and private media are mass producing disinformation and fake news reports. The martyrdom of 13 Ukrainian soldiers on Snake Island turned out to be false as the unit surrendered and is in Russian custody. Other early war fakes included the Ukrainian pilot, the 'ghost', who supposedly shot down 5-6 Russian fighter jets in the war's first days; the supposed Russian bombing of the Babi Yar cemetery and Jewish Holocaust memorial (site of a mass execution of Jews by German and Ukrainian Nazis during World War II that included among its perpetrators members of the SS Galicia Division and Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists of Ukraine's now most hailed hero, Stepan Bandera), the faked Russian bombing of a Ukrainian maternity hospital in Mariupol, and the alleged shooting by Russian troops of Ukrainian civilians in a bread line in Chernigov ( gordonhahn.com and news.yahoo.com). Many more such productions have been broadcast by the Ukrainians and disseminated worldwide by allied Western media.
The Ukrainian government has instituted since the war began an online monitoring system that will track the websites citizens visit, and should they visit banned Russian and 'pro-Russian' sites, they will be arrested and can face imprisonment. Vigilante groups are allowed to roam the streets in Kiev and all cities, making citizens' arrests of all sorts for alleged crimes and tying the alleged perpetrators to telephone and streetlight poles and leaving them there for hours in rain and snow, sometimes beating them.
In another blow to republic rule, Zelenskiy announced two weeks ago that Ukraine will not hold presidential elections in March 2024. Discussions of elections were "utterly irresponsible" during wartime, he said. The country is under martial law, prohibiting the holding of elections, and with thousands of soldiers at the front and millions of Ukrainians displaced at home and abroad by the war holding a fair election would be impossible, he stated ( www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/zelensky-refuses-to-hold-elections-in-wartime-ukraine/ar-AA1jwJcM).
Zelenskiy's Political Isolation
Zelenskiy is rejecting elections not so much because they are impractical to hold in a war-torn country but because he has isolated himself from the rest of the polity, including many in his administration, and he is again becoming very unpopular. The ban of leftist and centrist parties and right-centrist Poroshenko's indictment have alienated the left and center of the political spectrum. Failure at the front is alienating the center, right, and far right. There are increasing tensions between the civilian and military leadership, in particular between Zelenskiy and the Office of the President, on the one hand, Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Valeriy Zalyuzhniy and other generals, on the other hand. Zelenskiy's firing of the Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov and six of his deputy ministers as the counteroffensive failed this summer and disagreements between Zelenskiy and Zalyuzhniy over the wisdom of conducting a major counteroffensive without air cover and sufficiently artillery as well as over other issues are the tip of the iceberg in what is becoming a pre-coup situation in Kiev ( gordonhahn.com and gordonhahn.com). Some commanders" are refusing to carry out orders - "second-guessing" as Time softened it - "orders from the top" (Simon Shuster, 'Nobody Believes in Our Victory Like I Do.' Inside Volodymyr Zelensky's Struggle to Keep Ukraine in the Fight", Time.com, time.com). Zelenskiy has even managed to alienate his own base. Not only was his sponsor Kolomoiskii arrested presumably with his consent, but Zelenskiy appears to be planning to jettison his Servants of the People party, even dump 80 percent of its deputies in the Rada in favor of a new structure and personnel that supposedly will rely on military figures and war veterans ( t.me).
As Time and some other Western news stories report, in the wake of the failed counteroffensive this summer and Zelenskiy's failed US trip in September, Ukraine as a whole, including Zelenskiy and his immediate inner circle, are almost completely demoralized. If the fortunes of Kiev's army continue to fade at the front, as they are most likely to, and Zelenskiy persists in insisting there are battlefield successes and on continuing the fight, he can only become fatally isolated. Yet he continues to maintain the fiction of not just a possible, but a certain Ukrainian victory - in his traditional simulacra form. Not only has Zelenskiy's disinformation policy conjured up fairy tales of elusive Ukrainian 'ghost' pilots and fictional Russian atrocities, but has sought to coerce, to will reality to comply with Zelenskiy's fantastical wishes: Mariupol and Bakhmut would never fall and the Khinki foothold on the left back of the southern Dniepr in Kherson is a modern day D-Day.
It is not surprising, therefore, that Zelenskiy's inner circle regards him as "delusional," according to the Time article based on interviews with high-ranking Ukrainian officials during Zelenskiy's hapless trip to Washington in September-an article that by itself dealt a devastating blow to an already dire situation in ever more ruined Ukraine. Ukrainian officials around Zelenskiy portrayed him as being in a dark place and state of denial about the situation at the front, still under the delusion that Ukraine can prevail in the war. "Nobody believes in our victory like I do. Nobody," Zelenskiy himself told Time in an interview for the article. Maintaining faith in the coming victory "takes all your power, your energy. You understand? It takes so much of everything", said Zelenskiy. One member of Zelenskiy's administration said the beleaguered president is "angry" with his Western partners and stubborn with his domestic ones. The former comic actor's sense of humor seems gone, chastened by the harsh realities of the war he agreed to continue with his Western 'partners' when he abandoned promising Istanbul peace talks with Russia. Another Zelenskiy aide told the US magazine that the Ukrainian president feels betrayed by the West, which gives him just enough weapons to survive but not to win. "'He deludes himself,' one of his closest aides tells me in frustration. 'We're out of options. We're not winning. But try telling him that.'" "Zelensky's stubbornness, some of his aides say, has hurt their team's efforts to come up with a new strategy, a new message. As they have debated the future of the war, one issue has remained taboo: the possibility of negotiating a peace deal with the Russians" ( time.com). The war appears to be locking Zelenskiy into a fixed, stubborn position based on a desire to revenge Putin and prove his growing number of domestic doubters and opponents wrong.
One of the fundamental pillars of Zelenskiy's power at home was his international cachè. That is gone now, even with Ukraine's lead backers: the US and NATO. It is perhaps symbolic that the American journalist, Simon Shuster, who wrote the discrediting Time expose', long towed the US false party line on Ukraine and last year received a state award from Zelenskiy for his services ( strana.news). As Shuster notes, during the Ukrainian president's September DC trip "Congressional leaders declined to let Zelensky deliver a public address on Capitol Hill. His aides tried to arrange an in-person appearance for him on Fox News and an interview with Oprah Winfrey. Neither one came through" ( time.com). This is reflected in growing Ukraine fatigue among Americans, declining congressional support for massive weapons and financial assistance, decreasing US aide tranches, and warnings investors have reached the 'bottom of the barrel.' Poland has all but abandoned Ukraine, and Slovakia and Netherlands are following suit. The image of Ukraine is being exposed by much more harsh nature of actual reality than simulacra permits with costs for Zelenskiy's authority at home and abroad.
Conclusion
Zelenskiy had the bad fortune of taking over the Maidan project as it extended itself too far. Like a magic show the secrets of which were being leaked to the audience during a last performance, the NATO-Russia Ukrainian War exposed the fake nature of Zelenskiy's and the West's political practice of over-reliance on disinformation. In tragic irony, the simulacra phase of the Maidan regime is beginning its death throes under its perhaps greatest master of simulacra: Volodomyr Zelenskiy. The disintegration at the front is peeling back the curtain behind which hide the dark secrets of the Maidan, its regime, and its corrupt leaders. It is another irony that the Kiev trial of the Berkut police, whom the Maidan, its regime and the West falsely charged the Maidan shootings of 20 February 2014, concluded just as the Western-Ukrainian counteroffensive this summer was turning out a failure. The trial found that most of the victims on that day in Kiev had been shot by 'unidentified' snipers not by the Berkut police and not on orders from Yanukovych. Some of us have known for nine years that it was Ukrainian neo-fascists and even some Georgians sent by another 'beacon of democracy' Mikheil Saakashvili who had been the perpetrators of this terrorist attack.
Zelenskiy's failures played against his goals and undermined the entire Western-Galician Maidan project. His inability to stand up to the West's blandishments exposed his people to a terrible war that risks the not just the Maidan regime's but the Ukrainian state's survival. His inability to fight corruption and reinforce republican rule have exposed the West's claims both that Ukraine is a 'democracy' fighting for 'the West and its values' and that democratization is the goal of America's Ukraine policy. The sad fact is that Zelenskiy could not significantly reduce corruption and further secure republican rule, because he himself is as mired in corruption as many of his countryman are and because republican instincts in Ukraine pale in comparison to those of oligarchy and authoritarianism.
But it is not the latter shortcoming that is diminishing Zelenskiy's and Ukraine's Western backing. What is exacting the terrible price of a collapsing regime and potentially failed, even conquered state is the Ukrainians' decision to challenge the national security of a far more powerful state. The Ukrainians' only ally, the West, is turning increasingly decrepit and is fizzling away. It cannot afford to back Zelenskiy or even Ukraine 'for as long as it takes' because it is not Ukraine that is important to Washington and Brussels but rather the image and power of those who rule the roost in Washington. Zelenskiy's tragedy is that he became convinced that only Russians seek power, while also believing - perhaps at Western behest - that it would tolerate or be unable to counter a Ukrainian threat to its security.
There was always something out of kilter about a former comic, who once simulated playing the piano with his penis for laughs, taking over the helm of a geo-strategically pivotal state caught between two antagonistic great powers on the world stage. Now the Maidan regime, quite a circus in its time, and its vessel - the Ukrainian state - are shutting down, and their leader, Volodomyr Zelenskiy, like a sad clown with his circus closed down, has nowhere to go.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*Charles Mingus, "Duke Ellington's Sound of Love," Changes Two, (Atlantic, 1975).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
NEW BOOK
EUROPE BOOKS, 2022
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
RECENT BOOKS
MCFARLAND BOOKS, 2021
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
MCFARLAND BOOKS, 2018
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
About the Author - Gordon M. Hahn, Ph.D., is an Expert Analyst at Corr Analytics, www.canalyt.com. Websites: Russian and Eurasian Politics, gordonhahn.com and gordonhahn.academia.edu
Dr. Hahn is the author of the new book: Russian Tselostnost': Wholeness in Russian Thought, Culture, History, and Politics (Europe Books, 2022). He has authored five previous, well-received books: The Russian Dilemma: Security, Vigilance, and Relations with the West from Ivan III to Putin (McFarland, 2021); Ukraine Over the Edge: Russia, the West, and the "New Cold War" (McFarland, 2018); The Caucasus Emirate Mujahedin: Global Jihadism in Russia's North Caucasus and Beyond (McFarland, 2014), Russia's Islamic Threat (Yale University Press, 2007), and Russia's Revolution From Above: Reform, Transition and Revolution in the Fall of the Soviet Communist Regime, 1985-2000 (Transaction, 2002). He also has published numerous think tank reports, academic articles, analyses, and commentaries in both English and Russian language media.
Dr. Hahn taught at Boston, American, Stanford, San Jose State, and San Francisco State Universities and as a Fulbright Scholar at Saint Petersburg State University, Russia and was a senior associate and visiting fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Kennan Institute in Washington DC, the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and the Center for Terrorism and Intelligence Studies (CETIS), Akribis Group.