Getting ahead of Zelensky

There’s a reason Ukrainian voters voted overwhelmingly for political neophyte Volodymyr Zelensky this year; they’re sick of the status quo. They saw in Zelensky hope for both a winding down of the conflict in the east, and a long-promised clean-up of Ukraine’s famously corrupt political culture.

According to a feature story by Sarah Lawrynuik in the Toronto Sunday Star today, six months in, the natives are once again getting restless. Now they’re afraid Zelensky will “capitulate” to Putin.

Lawrynuik’s sources include a couple of disgruntled ex-pats who were “forced” out of Crimea, a few “patriots” who volunteered to fight in Donbas, and a couple of people with very close ties to foreign NGOs that have been meddling in Ukraine since well before the US-sponsored “Revolution of Dignity.” There’s not a whiff of “balance” to be found in the story.

A glance at a map and a passing acquaintance with Russia-Ukraine history would suggest that Russia has far more legitimate interests in Ukraine than does the US. This point of view is of course not shared by Washington, which continues to shower “pro-democracy activists” in Ukraine with lavish funding from the National Endowment for Democracy.

Their motto; “supporting freedom around the world,” needs to be a little more specific. What freedoms are they supporting? The freedom of grifters like Biden and Trump to meddle in Ukraine’s affairs? Lawrynuik recycles the three-year-old story of the alleged Surkov emails, reassuring us the they “were judged to be authentic by the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab.”

Well duh! What else would we expect from NATO’s propaganda arm?

“Military consultant” Glen Grant gets quoted a lot. He’s a former UK army guy who’s been making mischief in Eastern Europe on behalf of NATO for years. Last year he published an essay in the Western-sponsored Kyiv Post titled How Ukraine can build an army to beat Putin.

Those are the voices from Ukraine that the Toronto Star editorial board sees fit to represent to us what is happening in Ukraine. They’re voices that want to push Zelensky towards further conflict with Russia.

That’s not why 73% of Ukrainian voters made him their president. Western war-mongers need to shut up, butt out, and let him do his job.