How Zelensky blew it, in two emails

In 2022, a Ukrainian-American spoke out passionately to me about his country's efforts to defend itself from Russia. Today he offered a very different take.

Three years ago, I wrote a piece criticizing the conservative theory that Ukraine was running “biolabs” for the United States. I didn’t believe it then. I don’t believe it now. I know many of you disagree, but bear with me a second. This isn’t about biolabs.

That piece led a Ukrainian-American - let’s call him “Boris”¹ - to email me on March 11, 2022. Boris, who has the good taste to be an Unreported Truths paid subscriber, was frustrated at the time with comments criticizing my post and Ukraine’s defense against the Russian invasion. He wrote passionately and at length. Here’s an excerpt:

I am a Ukrainian living in the US (last 18 years), but I was born and raised in Kyiv. I have my mom and my brother in Ukraine, and my wife’s family is also there… I know the facts on the ground as well as what the truth about the politics and the situation in Ukraine.

So let me dispel some myths proposed by some people, including, on the right and state facts as they really are. The facts are:

This has nothing to do with NATO expansion or biolabs, nuclear weapons, or any other so-called threats to Russia (which did not exist). Putin, due to his worldview, wants to recreate a new Russian empire. It’s a spiritual mission for him… I know this for a fact. Very telling by talking to relatives in Moscow who are very imperialistic in their thinking…

Ukraine is a true democracy with free elections (in some ways more accurate than the ones we have in the US), the freedom of the press, and the 2014 revolution was not a coup. I know this for a fact, as my brother was on the ground on the Independence Square protesting Yanukovich… it was a true uprising against the dictatorship.

Ukrainian people overwhelmingly want to be part of NATO and the EU because they are afraid of Russia. This is not some push by the West: it’s their real desire… By the way, I am no deep-stage stooge or anything like that. I bet I am to the right of the vast majority of people on this blog (I am a First and Second amendment absolutist and a free-market diehard).

—

(Don’t worry, I’m getting to the part you’ll like. Meantime:)

—

Okay, that was March 11, 2022.

This morning Boris wrote in again, in response to yesterday’s article, “Volodymyr Zelensky's massive blunder,” where I criticized Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, for overplaying his hand and unnecessarily angering President Trump at last week’s press conference.

Given his full-throated defense of Ukraine three years ago, I expected he would criticize me for not agreeing that Zelensky had to do everything possible to defend his country. Nope. Here’s his view now, unedited:

Just read your post. I agree with you. As you may remember, (or see in the email thread) my wife and I are from Ukraine, and still have close family there. My mom and my brother are there.

My brother is ministry and and in reserves, but he doesn’t want to fight. Neither does my childhood friend or my wife’s brother.

I have been very supportive of Ukraine. But this is on Zelensky. He is as narcissistic as Trump, and all the “new Churchill” talk went to his head. Now Ukrainian soldiers will have to pay with their blood.

A frozen conflict along North Korea lines is the best Ukraine can get now. I can share many more thoughts, but have to go back to work.

Keep up the good work!

—

Quelle change.

It seems many Ukrainians are frustrated with their tunic-wearing commander-in-chief, who is less Churchill and more Castro than they hoped in 2022. Zelensky may be willing to fight to the last man, but more and more of those men are wondering if the squeeze is worth the juice.

It’s worth remembering that Ukrainians, like all Eastern Europeans, have watched Russian armies come and go before. The Warsaw Pact was forever, until it wasn’t. Freezing the frontlines and waiting for a less imperially minded Russian to replace Putin rather than losing thousands of men a month is an ugly choice, but it may be the best one they have right now — even with American support, which is increasingly tenuous.

It’s called realpolitik, not funpolitik.

—

(Realpolitik, for less than 20 cents a day.)

—

Yesterday’s article, if you missed it.

1. A reference to a famous line from the HBO show “The Wire,” where a Ukrainian criminal complains that Americans always call him Boris. “Why always Boris?” In a weirdly resonant moment, the American thieves he’s with also think he’s Russian, and when he protests he’s Ukrainian, they respond, “What’s the difference? Same thing.”