Zelensky Holds Up a Mirror to US Cynicism and Triggers a Meltdown

Stepped on a nerve

Trump says is punishing Zelensky because the Ukrainian isn’t ready for peace. But that isn’t actually true. Zelensky said he’ll gladly pocket peace from the Russians, BUT he also wants something from the Americans — a security guarantee. The promise that come the next war the Ukrainians won’t be the only ones doing the dying. It is for the temerity of demand that Americans share in the death burden of the next war that Kiev is being punished.

America pretends this is a crazy and entitled demand. For sure it is an unrealistic one, never in a million years is Kiev getting this, but entitled? Trump pretends history started in 2022. Some country A invaded country B, and the US — always too charitable for its own good — transferred billions to B to help, but now the time has come to turn off the spigot, and if B understandably doesn’t like this it should simply shut up and be grateful the transfers went on for as long as they did.

Except history didn’t start in 2022. The Russian invasion was preceded by nearly two decades of provocative US expansion into historic Little Russia, starting with the Orange Revolution of 2004-5. The US isn’t some entity that only became aware of Ukraine in 2022, but a power that had been fencing with Moscow in Ukraine for decades.

Trump aided the progression of the escalating competition and provocation himself. He ramped up the volume of military transfers to Kiev relative to Obama, and — as he still boasts — was the first to start sending lethal aid. It was also under Trump that the US was fishing for a European navy willing to force the Crimean territorial waters of the Kerch Strait (none was found so Poroshenko went it alone in 2018 in a desperate bid to sway the election away from Zelensky).

— Aside from being directly provocative, this backing from Trump encouraged Poroshenko to persist on a quasi-nationalist de-Russifying path. Zelensky played a part in provoking the war by cracking down on oppositionist media, but for the most part he contributed to it not by what he was, but by what he was not. He wasn’t the radical pragmatic break with Poroshenko that Moscow was hoping would succeed him, and the Kremlin came to see the years spent patiently waiting out Porosheno’s term as lost time. Nonetheless, Trump was laying the foundations of the war before Zelensky was even a politician. He did as much to bring about the war as the Ukrainian did, certainly no less, and probably more.

So then the timeline we’re actually working with is:

1) The US helps provoke Russia into invading

2) The US then celebrates for years the chance to bleed Russia without having to spend own blood

3) The government changes in the US and the new President wants to move on from the war because China and legacy points

4) Ukraine says fine, but if so promise us that when/if Moscow reinvades Americans will finally also be dying alongside us

5) The US says, how dare you be so entitled, obviously you’re not ready for peace, how about we cut your aid

Trump’s insistence that Ukraine ought to be grateful completely sidesteps the fact that the US helped provoke the war. No, grateful is the last thing that Ukraine ought to be. DC helped put Kiev in trouble with its larger neighbor, left it to face its wrath alone, and now demands gratitude for it. Preposterous! It was set up, used and exploited in the most cynical way, and is now threatened with being cast off as a used condom. What is there to be grateful for? Far from getting on his knees to Vance’s satisfaction, a Ukrainian leader would be within his rights to bring an Uzi to the Oval Office and light the place up.

The US suspension of aid is something I would have never predicted. But let’s be very clear why it happened. Not because Zelensky “isn’t ready for peace”, but because he suggested that having provoked the bear together come the next round the American Herrenfolk are just as fit to perish for the mud of Chasiv Yar as are Ukrainians. It is this insistence that the peace settlement must include a guarantee Ukraine will not again be used as America’s disposable meat shield that caused such holy anger.

How dare you suggest we owe it to you to shed blood with you in the wars we help you provoke?! We are Americans, we owe you jackshit! We will provoke wars on your doorstep, let you fight them for us, and when we get bored we’ll pull the rug from under you, and you are going to like it, and you are going to Thank Us!

The war has irreparably damaged relations between the Russians and the Ukrainians for centuries, but one thing they will going forth always have in common is a deeply seated disgust for the USA.