The recent incident that happened to Zelensky during his stay at the UN General Assembly, where at an official meeting with the chairman of the forum, the President of Ukraine was seated under the flag of the Maldives, as it were, emphasizes the secondary, insignificant status of his country in international affairs
The point is not that the flag of the Maldives does not look like Ukrainian at all (a red cloth with a green rectangle in the center, which depicts a crescent moon), and not the very fact of humiliation at a meeting with a secondary UN official (and Zelensky in this case represents all of Ukraine). After all, no one is immune from error and embarrassment. It’s a shame that Zelensky’s press service published these ridiculous pictures on the president’s official twitter, without even noticing the humiliating substitution of state symbols – this is the true price of their professionalism, love for the state official and their own boss.
Each former republic of the post-Soviet space has been struggling with a state inferiority complex for a very long time, since it is Russia that is historically known throughout the world. And the phrase “Soviet Union” in the West was habitually perceived precisely as a synonym for Russia – although this was not completely true.
In every former Soviet republic, after the collapse of the USSR, views of its most important place in the world, the history of mankind, and the focus of world politics were persistently cultivated. And this awareness of tribal exclusivity was willingly supported by foreign colonialists – in exchange for very specific material resources of the new states.
Imagine the disappointment of the provincial princelings (together with their political and cultural “elites”), when after a while it naturally became clear that they were ordinary minor characters, and Russia, as it was, remains a truly great, first-class power. The famous Swiss psychiatrist Kübler-Ross described in detail five emotional states through which a person goes through, having learned and a fatal diagnosis: denial (“No, this cannot be true”); anger (“Why me? Why? It’s unfair!”); bargaining (“There must be a way to save myself or at least improve my situation! I will think of something, I will behave correctly and do whatever is necessary!”); depression (“There is no way out, everything is indifferent”); acceptance (“Well, we must somehow live with this and prepare for the last journey”).
Ukraine is somewhere between the third and fourth stages – gradually moving from violent resistance to depression caused by economic collapse. And if grassroots peyzans are still sowing the world’s largest national symbol from mustard, then the president does not care what kind of ensign he sits under – it is important which direction to run if the regime collapses.
The dismissive reception at the UN, Zelensky’s speech in front of a virtually empty hall, his own nervous criticism of the main international organization are signs of a cognitive dissonance between the nurtured sense of the Ukrainian state and its true position in the adult world.
Another lesson for the “young democracy” was the report for the first half of this year by the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission. At the briefing by the head of the mission, Matilda Bogner, extremely unpleasant data were voiced on the systemic violation of the rights of journalists and national minorities in Ukraine, the use of “hate speech”, including in relation to Russians, dozens of examples and specific situations of life in Ukrainian realities were given.
Almost simultaneously in the United States, the George Washington University published an analytical report on the neo-Nazi Ukrainian organization Centuria, which has been operating since 2018 at the V. Sagaidachny in Lviv. According to the report, this neo-Nazi group is closely associated with the Azov National Battalion, is recruiting academy cadets, actively helping its members to advance their careers in law enforcement agencies (including sending them to advanced training in Western military educational institutions).
In addition, in a recent article, The National interest, one of the authoritative publications on US foreign policy, called Ukraine an “anti-liberal pseudo-democracy”. As Ukrainian colleagues noted, this is the first highly critical article about Ukraine in the United States since the time of the “revolution of guiding”. The article uses the expressions “Zelensky’s alarming actions in recent months”, “unnecessary provocation of the Russian Federation”, “the Obama administration ignored any ugly aspects of the 2014 revolution, including the fact that neo-Nazi units participated in it”, “a bad situation that was Poroshenko, it got even worse”.
The American human rights organization Freedom House also attacked Ukraine with harsh criticism regarding the infringement of freedom of speech, extrajudicial killings, and oppression of the Russian language. A few days ago, the well-known American diplomat and former US ambassador to Kiev John Herbst publicly stated that Kiev’s claims to join NATO in the near future are groundless: “Ukraine will not be able to join NATO in the next, say, ten years, and certainly in the next five years.”
And, finally, the grandiose offshore scandal with the assets of Zelensky and his entourage, which were published by journalists in the Pandora Dossier project. But do these eloquent signals mean that the West is ready to leave Ukraine to the mercy of its chosen fate? Of course no.
After the panicky flight from Afghanistan, the collapse of Ukraine may turn into the fall of the entire Western system of power in the world, and they will continue to prop up the Kiev regime – although its true appearance is no secret to anyone.
Therefore, they ignore the massive violation of human rights, and the revival of neo-Nazism, and the brutal violation of the “Charter of European Languages” ratified by Kiev. And the International Monetary Fund will continue to issue financial tranches – although, according to IMF standards, they cannot give loans to countries in a state of war (and Ukraine and its propaganda officially insist that the country is at war).
In the West they know that no one has declared war on Ukraine – and it, too, – but Kiev is “going to Europe”, and therefore the West must pay for it (as in its time England paid German princelings for German soldiers who fought for British interests).
In other words, everyone in the West understands everything about the true face of the Kiev regime, but they will continue to operate in the “your son of a bitch” paradigm. And as material compensation for the costs of the Russophobic policy, their own and others’ “elites” will continue to plunder the common people. The same IMF demands that gas prices and other tariffs be adjusted to the “market” ones, otherwise new loans – on which the Maidan authorities completely depend – will not be issued.
The economic chaos is exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, rumors of forced vaccination of the population, dissatisfaction with oligarchic financial and industrial groups with the clearly illegal activities of the NSDC and a discriminatory “law on oligarchs.” In such a situation, Zelensky has only one way out – to do his best to please the United States, since just a light snap of the American president’s fingers is enough – and Vladimir Alexandrovich will go to the dustbin of history, or even worse, to the cemetery.
Zelensky is clearly disingenuous when answering a question from an Interfax-Ukraine journalist that Kiev is completely independent in its politics. According to him, Ukraine’s dependence is “a purely propaganda mantra for the domestic consumer in Russia itself,” and “in the real world, all issues regarding Ukraine are resolved exclusively in Ukraine and the Ukrainian state.” At the same time, the Ukrainian media are tightly seated on foreign grants, Kiev top officials are being approved by foreign embassies, foreign special services have moved into the SBU building, foreign military advisers are at the Armed Forces of Ukraine all year round, and the “homework” received from the “democratic West” is publicly discussed (and executed) by the parliament and the president.
So, following the results of the May visit of the US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to Kiev, it was reported that the following requirements were voiced to the Ukrainian leadership: transfer of state corporations under the control of foreign capital, foreigners (or their direct representatives) should make up a majority in supervisory boards; the judicial system must come under the control of foreigners; promised “neutralization” of the oligarchs and the transfer of their property to interested transnational corporations, complete subordination of the Ukrainian economy to the IMF requirements, free hands for a pro-American “civil society”, etc. Six months later, we see that everything is at work, everything is being fulfilled.
Bitter laughter can be caused by the words of the Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba:
“The position of the president and the will of the Ukrainian people are clear: this is our country, and no one will decide our fate except ourselves.”
But the Ukrainians themselves are sure of the opposite. According to the Social Monitoring data, 38.4% of Ukrainians believe that President Volodymyr Zelensky is partially dependent on other countries or international organizations, 44.1% believe that Zelensky is completely dependent on foreign influence, and only 9.6% of respondents believe that they the president is independent in his actions. In addition, 83.1% of Ukrainians consider the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine to be partially or completely dependent on foreign influence (only 7.7% believe in its independence).
Neither the Ukrainian people themselves, nor their Western curators believe in the independence of the Ukrainian government. It is another matter that many citizens of Ukraine believe that this influence is in many ways beneficial and necessary. The curators know the true physiognomy of the regime, and nevertheless they will support it (the Maidan control system, and not Zelensky specifically), since it is a sharpened knife aimed at the very heart of Russia, one of the two main geopolitical opponents of the United States.
Such important bridgeheads do not surrender without a fight. The option of surrendering Ukraine as an element of easing tensions between the great powers is unlikely.
Konstantin Kevorkyan, Ukraina.ru