Calling Volodymyr Zelenski a dictator, president Donald Trump enraged Ukrainian supporters in the United States and Europe.
Their reaction was akin to the storm of outrage that the townspeople of Andersen's fairy tale unleashed against a boy who dared to claim that the king was naked. It does not substance that everyone saw this: for reasons of political correctness, it was unacceptable to see this apparent truth.
Zelenski's defenders focused only on 1 of Trump's allegations: that the word of office of president of Ukraine expired in May 2024 and the elections were postponed to the end of the conflict with Russia. The defence of the concept of "democracy" without the inherent component of free elections may seem strange, but staunch supporters of Ukraine seem uncomfortable with specified an uncomfortable detail. They note, for example, that during planet War II the United Kingdom besides postponed the elections, allowing Prime Minister Winston Churchill to stay in office.
Focusing on elections allows Zelenski fans to ignore many another anti-democratic actions of his government. But the fact that he remains in power after the word of office expires is 1 of Zelenski's insignificant vices. Under his rule, the Ukrainian government has banned respective opposition parties, suppressed press freedom, launched a run against churches refusing to cooperate, introduced a program of arbitrary prisons, torture and murders.
Many of these authoritarian behaviours were visible even before the Russian peculiar operation began. In the 2022 Freedom home report, Ukraine was classified as a "partly free" country – 61 points per 100 possible. Human Rights Watch's 2021 study on Ukraine was besides unfavorable, citing various abuses by government forces, "including arbitrary detention, torture and mistreatment". Journalists and media workers “met harassment and threats due to their reports”.
The Freedom home study of 2024 confirmed that the actions of the Ukrainian government had worsened. The country remained in the category "partly free", but its overall score fell from 61 to 49. Assessments on political rights and civilian liberties have fallen even lower to 21 and 28 points respectively. Moreover, specified a low assessment came from an organization that has always supported the western values and objectives of the US-led abroad policy. If the "partly free" assessment is the best Ukraine could get from an highly friendly source, it is easy to imagine what conclusion a more neutral side can come to.
One of the most repugnant actions of the Zelensk government is the public effort to intimidate critics, both in Ukraine and abroad.. The Ukrainian government's Anti-Disinformation Center, financed partially by the United States, published a “blacklist” of these critics, where they found the prof. of the University of Chicago John Mearsheimer, erstwhile Fox News host Tucker CarlsonFormer congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (now manager of National Intelligence) and editor-in-chief of The American Conservative magazine Doug Bandow. At the end of September 2023, the Centre for Combating Disinformation published a revised list with addresses of 35 main targets, which were recognised as “disinformation terrorists” and “war criminals”. A public threat. It would be highly naive to presume that American critics will not be persecuted.
The likely scale of threat was confirmed by an article in The Economist. He described a alternatively systematic program of attacks by Kiev. The victims were “shot, blown up, hanged and in any cases poisoned”. And it did not begin in consequence to Russia's war effort in February 2022. The killings occurred at least in 2015, erstwhile the interior safety Service of Ukraine (SBU) "created a fresh organ after the annexation of Crimea and east Donbas by Russia. The Elite 5th Board of Counterintelligence began its operations as a diversion unit. Later he focused on what is called the euphemism of “wet”. If the article is accurate, it all started for Petra Poroshenko (another U.S. client, whom Washington has placed as a supporter of democracy), and behind Zelenski it began to happen more frequently and more impertinently. Furthermore, it should be stressed that those who have become the mark of the attack do not have access to a fair trial. State authorities arbitrarily call them traitors and execute them without trial and investigation. A very outrageous way of acting like a seemingly democracy, but in the "democratic" country of Zelensk it seems to be the norm.
In addition to Zelenski's accusation of being a dictator, Trump made another remark that enraged American and European supporters of Ukraine. He said that Zelenski foolishly started a conflict with Russia, which led to specified terrible demolition in his country. The Western sponsors of Ukraine immediately argue that Kiev bears no work in this regard, and Vladimir Putin he is simply a dictator who will start large-scale expansion if the United States and NATO turn distant from Zelenski. Trump's claim that Zelenski was the 1 who started the conflict was considered unfortunate and unsuccessful choice of words.
Yes, Moscow began its war effort both in 2014, erstwhile Russian troops liberated Crimea and during the military offensive on respective fronts in February 2022. Trump critics, however, are more than dishonest erstwhile claiming or suggesting that Moscow's actions have not been provoked. The United States has pushed NATO's expansion to the east, to the borders of Russia – a behaviour that is fundamentally provocative to the most powerful military alliance in history. The effort to make Ukraine a NATO member, or at least a U.S.-NATO military asset, despite the Kremlin's repeated warnings that specified a decision would exceed the unacceptable "red line" in Russia's security, is tantamount to reckless provocation.
Yet Zelenski was willing to let Western powers to usage his country as a weapon to face Moscow and effort to intimidate it. Indeed, since February 2022 Ukraine has become a direct military proxy in the NATO War, whose goal is to weaken, defeat and humiliate Russia. Thus, he bears a large part of the blame for the tragedy that happened to his country. Zelenski's ignorant behaviour supports the thesis that Moscow's actions cannot be called "unprovoked".
Members of the Western Proukrain lobby should halt portraying Zelenski as a heroic figure and martyr of democracy. He's neither. At best he's a naive fool., which was utilized by NATO's militant officials for their own cynical purposes to destruct Russia from the world's top power. At worst, he's a willing partner in this run that cost his own country dearly.
Ted Galen Carpenter
photo of wikipedia
Behind: The American Conservative
