The war between Russia and Ukraine has devastated both countries and entangled Europe in a sanctions failure that has hit the sanctioners harder than the sanctioned. Zelensky, now forced to negotiate with the Russians, faces the need to revoke the dialogue ban he imposed. Meanwhile, Western leaders who counted on Putin’s downfall are falling one by one as Putin watches with sadistic glee. It remains to be seen if Zelensky will convene the negotiations or if Ukraine will need a new, more credible representative for this ongoing tragedy.
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Beyond Trump’s right ear and what remains of Biden and his Secret Service, the bullet fired on Saturday night by Thomas Matthew Crooks also hit Zelensky. Yesterday, quietly and calmly, as soon as he recovered from the shock, he declared, with an air of stating the most logical thing in the world (which it indeed is), that at the autumn peace summit, “Russian representatives must also be present.” Sooner or later, he will even pronounce the name (it’s not difficult: Vladimir Putin) and revoke his decree of October 4, 2022, which prohibits all Ukrainians, including himself, from negotiating with the Russians. While waiting for some local Atlantist to also call him a Putin sympathizer, it would take an encyclopedia to collect the insults, slanders, pillories, and ostracisms suffered by those who have dared to say the same thing for two and a half years: the war between Russia and Ukraine can only end with a negotiation between Russia and Ukraine with their respective allies (China and BRICS, USA and NATO). Russia and Ukraine had already understood this in March 2022, 28 months and hundreds of thousands of deaths ago, when they agreed with the mediation of Erdogan and Bennett. Then NATO hardliners parachuted Boris Johnson into Kiev to force Zelensky not to sign and to have his people massacred to defeat Russia. A paranoid idea that had already cost Napoleon and Hitler dearly. And now it has condemned Ukraine to death, plummeting from 44 to 28 million inhabitants, semi-destroyed in infrastructure, decimated in its youth, further economically failed, and now also militarily. But it has also devastated Europe with sanctions that were supposed to bring down the sanctioned Putin but ruined the sanctioners. And it has dragged NATO into yet another defeat, as if the disasters in the Balkans, Libya, Niger, and the shameful retreat from Kabul were not enough.
Meanwhile, Putin, whom we were supposed to isolate, has isolated us with all present and future BRICS members. And he sadistically watches the misfortune of the leaders who relied on his downfall and are now falling like bowling pins: Johnson, Truss, Sunak, Draghi, Letta, Marin, Morawiecki, Macron, Scholz, Biden… It remains to be seen whether Zelensky, the defeated one, can convene the negotiations after mocking them for two years, or whether Ukraine will have to find a more credible representative for the new role in the play, or rather the tragedy. And it will be seen if Putin, the victor, will attend the autumn summit or wait until January 20, when the White House will have a new tenant who seems very familiar to him. Certainly, no one will ask the opinion of the so-called Europe’s lapdogs and pets, who, unlike Zelensky, have not yet even heard Butler’s shots. Perhaps someone will notify them afterward, as befits the servants.
Il Fatto Quotidiano, 16 luglio 2024
