"Delusional" Zelinsky still believes Ukraine can win

[UnseenParticipant]

‘Nobody Believes in Our Victory Like I Do.’ Inside Volodymyr Zelensky’s Struggle to Keep Ukraine in the Fight

Public support for aid to Ukraine has been in decline for months in the U.S., and Zelensky’s visit did nothing to revive it. Some 41% of Americans want Congress to provide more weapons to Kyiv, down from 65% in June, when Ukraine began a major counteroffensive, according to a Reuters survey taken shortly after Zelensky’s departure. That offensive has proceeded at an excruciating pace and with enormous losses, making it ever more difficult for Zelensky to convince partners that victory is around the corner. With the outbreak of war in Israel, even keeping the world’s attention on Ukraine has become a major challenge.

After his visit to Washington, TIME followed the President and his team back to Kyiv, hoping to understand how they would react to the signals they had received, especially the insistent calls for Zelensky to fight corruption inside his own government, and the fading enthusiasm for a war with no end in sight. On my first day in Kyiv, I asked one member of his circle how the President was feeling. The response came without a second’s hesitation: “Angry.”

The usual sparkle of his optimism, his sense of humor, his tendency to liven up a meeting in the war room with a bit of banter or a bawdy joke, none of that has survived into the second year of all-out war. “Now he walks in, gets the updates, gives the orders, and walks out,” says one longtime member of his team. Another tells me that, most of all, Zelensky feels betrayed by his Western allies. They have left him without the means to win the war, only the means to survive it.

But his convictions haven’t changed. Despite the recent setbacks on the battlefield, he does not intend to give up fighting or to sue for any kind of peace. On the contrary, his belief in Ukraine’s ultimate victory over Russia has hardened into a form that worries some of his advisers. It is immovable, verging on the messianic. “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.”

[PopeBeanieModerator]

So we can celebrate if/when Putin cleans house?

[UnseenParticipant]

Ukrainians are lining up to STAY OUT of the proxy war meatgrinder, and who can blame them? This war could have a negotiated end in which the more Russian-speaking part which the Ukrainian government has been abusing when not ignoring goes to Russia. Putin would have his face-saving way out and the carnage which is killing both Ukrainians and Russians could stop.

[PopeBeanieModerator]

If corruption in government is the issue, I just don’t see Putin as a hero hoping or intending to get rid of it.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Robbie Suave, you ignorant slut!

All this means is that Ukranians have a two-front war to fight: One war against Putin and his Putineers from abroad and one against the Zelenskyy Government’s tyranny and corruption at home!

And it’s not like it hasn’t been done before! The Tuskegee Airmen and other Black Americans in World War II flashed two “V”s with their fingers: One for Victory against Nazism and Fascism abroad and one for Victory against Jim Crow at home. And they fought righteously and eventually won both wars!

Zelenskyy also gave Ukrainian citizens arms at the beginning of the War, so Ukranians now have the means to deal with tyranny and corruption at home. And if Zelenskyy makes the dumb mistake of demanding the arms back, he might get them bullets first! And Zelenskyy will deserve it as much as Putin!

• This reply was modified 3 weeks, 2 days ago by  TheEncogitationer. Reason: Spelling

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Addendum: And, Robbie, Rico Suave, pal, The Wagner Group is not an “Anti-Putin mercenary group!” They were hired by Putin and only turned against Putin when his air fighters ham-handedly strafed them on the ground! Dummy!

[Author]

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