Is the Jig Finally Up for Zelenskiy and If So What is To be Done?
Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskiy seems to have rejected or at least refused to endorse U.S. President Donald Trump’s 28-point peace plan at least in its present form, saying Kiev is ready to continue work on a plan, noting: “Our teams – of Ukraine and the United States – will work on the provisions of the plan to end the war. We are ready for constructive, honest and swift work.” (https://strana.news/news/495217-zelenskij-i-driskoll-obsudili-mirnyj-plan-trampa-po-zavereshniju-vojny-s-rf-video-vstrechi.html). Neither did he indicate support for any part of the plan. Moreover, the Ukrainian leader continued to pull the wool over Americans’ eyes, saying that he “informed” Trump’s envoy, who relayed the plan to him in a November 19th meeting, “about Russia’s horrific strike on Ternopil. The Kh-101 missile that the Russian army used yesterday to hit an ordinary residential building was manufactured in 2025. It contains 175 foreign components that are still reaching Russia in circumvention of sanctions” (https://x.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1991572072833614117). But Ukrainian and Russian media have already demonstrated that the apartment building stood next to the target – the ‘Orion’ factory producing communications equipment for the Ukrainian Army Forces (https://strana.news/news/495230-rjadom-s-postradavshim-domom-v-ternopole-nakhoditsja-zavod-orion.html). But the days of Zelenskiy’s ability to con Americans are ending. No longer will the latter buy sales pitches asserting that Ukrainian forces clearing Pokrovsk and Kupyansk of Russian soldiers, as Trump did in their September meeting. Both towns have fallen and are being cleared of Ukrainian foces by Russian troops.
One gets the distinct impression that Mr. Zelenskiy is still playing the same game, as if Mindichgate did not happen and he retains the same level of authority and legitimacy he had before the scandal broke. Those were already rather dissipating, given the collpase of the front and army and the Ukrainian people’s preference to a negotiated solution to the conflict rather than continued war, death, and destruction. Mr. Zelenskiy is playing for time and hoping against hope that Europe will come to his rescue and somehow get himself and Ukraine through until a new, perhaps more pro-Ukrainian U.S. president arrives in the Oval Office in 2029. This is why he wants to construct and elaborate, time-consuming process around the 28-point plan, and this is why the Ukrainian Rada is heloing him drag things out by claiming that points in the plan come under the purview of the parliament, not the president. This will make the process more cumbersome, as Washington and Moscow can be told that differences between the president and parliament need to be ironed out and an internal consensus built before Ukraine’s position can be established and then squared through further give and take with Washington and Moscow. …………
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About the Author –
Gordon M. Hahn, Ph.D., is an Expert Analyst at Corr Analytics, www.canalyt.com. Websites: Russian and Eurasian Politics, gordonhahn.com and gordonhahn.academia.edu
Dr. Hahn is the author of the new book: Russian Tselostnost’: Wholeness in Russian Thought, Culture, History, and Politics (Europe Books, 2022). He has authored five previous, well-received books: The Russian Dilemma: Security, Vigilance, and Relations with the West from Ivan III to Putin (McFarland, 2021); Ukraine Over the Edge: Russia, the West, and the “New Cold War” (McFarland, 2018); The Caucasus Emirate Mujahedin: Global Jihadism in Russia’s North Caucasus and Beyond (McFarland, 2014), Russia’s Islamic Threat (Yale University Press, 2007), and Russia’s Revolution From Above: Reform, Transition and Revolution in the Fall of the Soviet Communist Regime, 1985-2000 (Transaction, 2002). He also has published numerous think tank reports, academic articles, analyses, and commentaries in both English and Russian language media.
Dr. Hahn taught at Boston, American, Stanford, San Jose State, and San Francisco State Universities and as a Fulbright Scholar at Saint Petersburg State University, Russia and was a senior associate and visiting fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Kennan Institute in Washington DC, the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and the Center for Terrorism and Intelligence Studies (CETIS), Akribis Group.