In May I published an article arguing that the West and Ukraine, particularly the television producer- and actor-turned Ukrainian leader Volodomyr Zelenskiy, аre under the spell of the supposed magical effect that propaganda can have on real world outcomes, including war (see original below). They are in the thrall of the post-modern belief that an alternative reality can be created and then transmogrified so that it becomes the dominant, actual reality by ubiquitous articulations asserting, assuming, and setting up information consumers’ inference of its truth. Two weeks later Zelenskiy’s former press secretary Yulia Mendel gave an interview to Tucker Carlson, in which she described precisely this being Zelenskiy’s worldview. With the assistance of many state and media ‘talking heads’, Zelenskiy was and to a certain extent is still successful in drawing tens of millions of people across the world into a ‘reality’ that is in truth a fictional world bearing little to no resemblance to objective reality, no less some higher truth.
The key passage of Mendel’s demonstrating Zelenskiy’s simulacraticism is as follows:
One of the most shocking moments for me personally, as I was on the communications team in 2019, 2020, was that he was really scared that his ratings started dropping down, and he was sure that the communications team was guilty in that. …TO CONTINUE READING, PLEASE SUBSCRIBE TO MY SUBSTACK SITE AT: https://gordonhahn.substack.com/p/the-simulacrats-and-their-imminent-35b
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED THERE in MAY 2026
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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.