The US has this habit of throwing their erstwhile friends under the bus when they are no longer needed. Larry Johnson offered a small list of examples on his blog, which featured Osama bin Laden, Muammar Gaddafi, Saddam Hoessein en Manuel Noriega, with pictures taken in the presence of American presidents and their representatives, everybody looking happy, as a backdrop to a portrait of Zelensky and what awaits him. Will he be the next to go?
Clearly the list of American friends and allies which didn't make it to the end is considerably longer, and it includes far less controversial leaders. As I indicated in my previous contribution, the jury is still out on the question whether or not Zelensky is still useful to NATO. If the US ('Master of the NATO-Universe') tilts towards rejecting the option to accept that the Donbas and Crimea are gone, while moving towards incorporating what is left of Ukraine into NATO, to bring it under an 'Article 5'-umbrella, and call it a day, that will buy Zelensky some more time. But if the US has seen enough, Zelensky is toast.
As a rule friends and allies which are no longer needed won't be able to walk away from it all, since they know things. Ugly things. And even if they do not develop a grudge, because they were stabbed in the back, they may talk at some inconvenient moment, and spoil another play. So they end up dead, or in prison. The thing with Zelensky is that hardly anyone will mourn for him, outside his immediate family, if you ask me. From the beginning he was not trusted by the hard-core neo-Nazi's which were all powerful in the military after the 2014 coup. And those who voted for him because they trusted him to bring peace and stability, as he promised he would prior to being elected in a landslide, were betrayed by him. He lost friends he took with him into government when war broke out and after he decided to accept the 'invitation' from Boris Johnson to reject the offer from the Russians in Istanbul to end this nonsense for good.
The conditional 'warm friendship' offered to him by his 'admirers' in NATO, who presented him in their parliaments, was as fake as it gets. And even his Jewishness is failing him now, as Israel never became an ally, and rejected his requests to honour him with a reception in Israel as everybody and his dog flew to Tel Aviv to offer their condolences after the October 7 massacre. Obviously, getting caught applauding a die-hard Nazi from the Second World War in Canada didn't go down well in Israel. Others in his company at that venue were somewhat excused, perhaps, because they had trouble understanding that someone who fought the Russians in the Second World War had to be a Nazi, but Zelensky should have known instantly.
Personally I do not have any feelings for Zelensky. As he ran against openly fascist candidates to replace Porochenko as the president of 'Regime Changed' Ukraine, without the Donbas and Crimea, I dug into his history as a comedian, and thought it was all very vulgar to be honest. Very 'cheap'. But he did leave the impression that he understood that widespread corruption was the main reason why Ukraine was a failed state from the get-go. His 'Gung-Ho' style in sketches where he was a teacher-turned-politician who was fed-up with corruption, unloading his high caliber automatic fire arms in parliament, would have landed him in court in Holland for inciting violence. And suggesting to play the piano with his dick was simply embarrassing.
But I do have feelings for all those Ukrainian people who got killed from the day the US and their friends decided to 'Regime Change' the country with the help of extreme right wing 'fight clubs' and soccer hooligans. And those who are left behind today, trying to answer the question what they were thinking as they ticked the box with Zelensky's name. Many of them now living in other European countries, struggling to make ends meet, unsure what to make of the token support in their host country, waning as time goes by, and unsure whether or not they will escape the fate of other refugees in those countries, who fled from war which involved NATO just like they did. Will they be allowed to raise their kids in the traditions they are accustomed to? Will those host countries respect their culture? Their Orthodoxy? Or will they be told to pay the piper, and that they need to understand the NATO countries did everything they could, before pulling the plug? Like they did in Iraq, in Syria, in Afghanistan and in numerous other countries.
Yes, I'm getting ahead of myself. We're not there yet. But predicting likely developments is what this blog is all about. Explaining after the fact is pretty useless. But I do understand that I maybe wrong, and that some miraculous resurrection will save Ukraine and Zelensky. But I can't see how. Zelensky's best bet, I guess, is calling the leader of a relatively small non-NATO-, non-Brics-, but proud country to arrange for yet another state visit, and upon arrival beg for refugee status. Rumour has it that he has multiple houses and assets in various countries around the world, and if that is true, he might be able to settle there and lay down low. But he won't have too many true friends left. And he would have to develop eyes in the back of his head, whereas he would be the ideal martyr, killed by his friends, who can subsequently blame Russia. Bad for your heart. But at least his is still ticking, while that of hundreds of thousands of his fellow countrymen ceased to function as they died on the battlefield in a quest to obtain a NATO-membership ticket. How sad……