No one can doubt the courage of Ukraine’s 44-year-old president, Volodymyr Zelensky, in defying Russia’s invasion of his nation, or the courage and suffering of its people, but his judgment is another matter.
His goal, even before the invasion, seems to have been to lead the world to war.
But then, his position changed dramatically, and not because Russia invaded his country. He flip-flopped before then.
He knew that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had threatened that Moscow would “retaliate” if its demands for a halt to NATO expansion weren’t met. Yet, on Feb. 19 at the Munich Security Conference, Zelensky defiantly made it plain that he not only wanted Ukraine to join NATO, but he also wanted its nuclear weapons on Ukrainian soil.
“At a public press event at the Munich Security Conference, Kamala Harris encouraged Ukraine to become a member of NATO. ‘I appreciate and admire President Zelensky’s desire to join NATO.’“ Carlson told his viewers. ”Message: Up yours, Vladimir Putin, go ahead and invade Ukraine. And of course, Vladimir Putin did that just days later.”
“The annexation of Crimea and the war in Donbas affects the whole world. This is not a war in Ukraine, but a war in Europe,” he claimed, adding: “How did it happen that in the 21st century, Europe is at war again and people are dying? Why does it last longer than World War II?”
This was now his turn to exaggerate, as he was speaking before the current invasion.
By claiming that Ukraine’s territorial dispute with Russia over Crimea and the Donbas region was on par with the Nazi takeover of most of Europe, he also was seeking to make this the West’s problem. But his speech ended up making a bad situation worse by provoking Russia to launch its full invasion.
Zelensky knew he was picking a fight he couldn’t possibly win without the help of NATO forces. In doing so, he was gambling with the lives of his fellow countrymen, women, and children, but at least he had Kamala Harris at his side. So, does that make her an accessory?
Zelensky told MPs that “Ukraine wasn’t seeking this [conflict],” which is correct, but what did he expect would happen when he made his fateful speech in Munich?
He ended his 10-minute address with: “Find a way to make our sky safe. Do what you can, what you have to do, and what is obliged by the greatness of your country and your people.”
Rousing stuff and Boris Johnson responded accordingly. He told MPs: “In a great European capital now within range of Russian guns, President Volodymyr Zelensky is standing firm for democracy and for freedom.”
That’s fightin’ talk, but what Zelensky really wants are NATO no-fly zones, NATO boots on the ground, and, eventually, NATO nuke silos underground, which could lead to war between Russia and the United States that would surely only end in one MAD (mutually assured destruction) way.
This is the same demand he made to Zelensky before Russia invaded, before many people died—with a lot more deaths still to come—and before parts of his country lay in ruins.
If Ukraine had chosen to become neutral, it would have been joining nations such as Finland, Malta, Ireland, Japan, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Sweden, Turkmenistan, Costa Rica, Austria, and even the Vatican City. Not much use to NATO though.
While Western outrage and concern at the human misery now being inflicted is understandable, at the same time, it’s hypocritical. America and coalition forces were once the aggressors that invaded Iraq in 2003 under the false pretext that it had weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
That was a lot of deaths on the off-chance that Saddam Hussein might have a weapon. And there was no intelligence to say he was going to use it—how could there have been as no WMDs were ever found in Iraq, whereas, Zelensky has admitted to the world his plans to site them in Ukraine and aim them in Russia’s direction.
To turn Zelensky’s Titanic metaphor against him: Is he now acting like the captain who wanted to reach America so fast that he ended up steering his ship into an iceberg—a Russian one? And are our leaders risking making all of us his passengers?